Real Vampires Don't Sparkle (10 page)

“
Schieβe
,” Matheus whispered. The fight was too real. The dull, wet thuds had no music to mask them, no cuts to artistic angles, no graceful, choreographed movements. Blood sprayed into the air, splashing over Quin’s wrists, his face. No art, just rage and violence and the frantic desire not to be the one who end up in a body bag.

Quin didn’t stop. The hunter’s face turned into a mush of flesh and crushed bone, but Quin kept pounding.

The other hunter had disentangled himself, shoving the big man’s body away with a grunt of effort. He stalked over to Quin, and aimed his crossbow at his back. Quin, too distracted to notice, didn’t move.

Matheus pulled a rock from his pocket. His hand shook. He had to get this right. Everything his father had taught him about shooting flitted through his head.
Don’t rush. See the target. Breathe.

Matheus threw the rock as hard as he could, striking the hunter on the wrist. With a yelp, the hunter dropped the crossbow. Matheus didn’t need as much time with the second rock. He whipped the stone though the leaves, hitting the hunter on his temple. He staggered, then slumped onto Quin.

The impact jarred Quin into reality. Pushing the body off, he stood. He frowned down at his hands, plucking a bit of bone out of his knuckles before looking up. A pair of nasty scratches marred the left side of his face and a bruise darkened his jawline.

“Matheus?” he called.

In an action movie, Matheus would jump out of the tree, brush a speck of dirt off his sleeve, and finish up with a witty remark about saving Quin’s ass. He would probably include a pun of some kind. Unfortunately, real life had little in common with action movies. Matheus toppled off his perch, crashed through several branches and landed with a forced exhale of air.

“See,” he said weakly. “I helped.”

“You did,” said Quin. He made an effort to clean the blood off his face, but his handkerchief had reached the ends of its silken limits. With a grimace, he tossed the cloth away, wiping his hands on the tails of his shirt instead.

Matheus could tell the streaks of blood left on the delicate fabric pained him.

“Is he…is he dead?” Matheus asked, nodding towards the hunter he’d struck.

Quin tore himself away from mourning the loss of his dress shirt.

“Not yet,” he said, searching through the ferns. Locating the discarded crossbow, he selected a bolt out of the dead man’s quiver and loaded it. With a lazy gesture, he pointed the weapon at the unconscious hunter.

Matheus looked away as the bolt released.

“Now he’s dead.”

“Did you have to do that?” Matheus asked. “He wasn’t going to get up.”

“Better to make sure,” Quin said. “He would have killed you without a thought.” He tossed the crossbow to Matheus, along with the blood-soaked quiver. “Hold on to that. You can throw straight, maybe you can shoot too.”

“But—”

“Those are the rules of the hunt, Sunshine. Everyone who plays is ready to die.”

Quintus Livius Saturninus
, Matheus thought.

“I bet you were a gladiator,” he said.

“No, a soldier,” said Quin. He picked up the broadsword, flipping the hilt between his hands. “We should go. We still need a place to spend the day.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” Matheus said as he followed Quin, the crossbow clutched to his chest. “I’m not.”

Another hour passed before more hunters found them. Five this time, pinning them against a rock ledge. Quin killed two, then grabbed Matheus, sprinting between the remaining hunters. They half-ran, half-stumbled downhill as the ledge grew higher beside them and crossbow bolts showered down around them. Quin veered into a patch of thorny bushes; the hunters didn’t follow. Matheus didn’t blame them; tiny, stinging cuts covered his legs by the time they emerged. He and Quin doubled around, approaching the ledge from the rear, then climbing upward. Three hours passed before Quin declared they had lost the hunters.

“There are going to be two more nights like this?” Matheus asked, clinging to a birch tree.

“If we’re lucky,” Quin replied. He sank down on the ground and pulled up the cuff of his pants. The bolt embedded in his calf had broken off, leaving a jagged bit of wood sticking out.

Matheus thought the hunters must have made their own bolts. Most arrows were made of aluminum and plastic, these days.

Quin gripped the wood and pulled, letting out a hiss of pain as the blades tore through his flesh. The hunters used broadhead points, with four blades instead of the more standard three. Matheus didn’t know why, unless they also liked to hunt game while they were out here. Broadheads helped an animal bleed out faster; not an issue with the undead.

“Why the hell are you doing this?” Matheus asked.

“I’m not going to run around with an arrow in my leg.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant.”

“I’m not a mind reader, Sunshine,” Quin tore a strip of cloth off his shirt. He tied it around the wound, then flexed his leg.

“Why did you agree to the hunt? If I’m stuck here, I think I deserve to know.”

“I told you. I need something from them.”

“What?”

Quin tilted his head, looking up through the layers of leaves.

“Quin—”

“Information.”

“Fucking hell, am I going to have drag everything out of you?” Matheus asked.

“You should have stayed home where you belong,” Quin said.

“So, I’m a fucking housewife now? I should just stay home and clean the silver? Have cocktails ready at five and dinner on the table by six?”

“You aren’t making any sense.”

“I am making perfect sense. You’re the one who—”

Quin clamped his hand over Matheus’ mouth. He turned, lining up their eyes, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

“You,” he said. “Are being loud.”

Something crashed in the woods to Matheus’ left. His gaze flicked away, searching through the trees. Every shadow hid a hunter, every noise held a crossbow being cocked. He looked back at Quin, and nodded. In a choice between yelling at Quin, and not being killed by the hunters, Matheus would chose not being killed every time. He postponed yelling at Quin until in the comfort and security of the city. The minutes drifted by, broken only by the sounds of the forest around them.

“How do they keep finding us?” Matheus asked. One bit of woods looked like every other bit of woods. He’d seen his father track a wounded deer through the forest. Magic to a child, and magic to an adult, as well. Matheus preferred city life. Nature contained far too many things that wanted to eat him, poison him, or crawl on him for Matheus ever to be comfortable.

“This is probably their regular hunting ground. They know the area. We don’t. Besides, this isn’t exactly their first time. Hunts like this have been going on for centuries, carried over from the old country. A family tradition. Fathers train their sons, who train their sons, and so on.”

“Very patriarchal,” said Matheus dryly.

“There are female hunters,” Quin said. “They’re rare. I like to think women have more sense than that.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Quin. Women are allowed to be as aggressive and bloodthirsty as any man.”

“Allowed, yes. Doesn’t mean they are.”

Matheus considered the pros and cons of debating gender roles in the middle of a forest while hiding from
Deliverance
extras, then realized he didn’t care. He slid slowly down his tree, some bark peeling off with him. In the distance, something let out a high, staggered yelp. Matheus edged closer to Quin.

“I’m tired,” he said, fiddling with a piece of birch bark. He separated the thick outer layer and tossed it aside, leaving only the wispy inner part. The wafer-thin bark clung to his fingers as he shredded it into long strips, letting the wind catch each one and carry it away.

“I know,” said Quin. “Rest a while.”

“Okay.” Matheus released the last of the bark, then wiped his hands over his pants. That only left him with dirt-streaked palms. He sighed, dropping them to his sides. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head on Quin’s shoulder. As a pillow, he’d had better; Quin took the definition of lean to a whole new level. But Quin’s shoulder had the advantage of not being covered in tiny bugs. The only things Matheus hated more than bugs were tiny bugs. Sneaky bastards. Besides, Quin owed Matheus, and part of paying him back required Quin’s services as a headrest.

Quin smelled like old blood, dirt, and pine needles. His shirt stuck to Matheus’ cheek. Matheus didn’t smell much better, though, so he stayed where he was, listening to the strange animal in the distance and trying not to think about being eaten. Would he remain conscious? Would his bits grow back, or would he have to wait for them to, erm, evacuate the animal? Matheus wished for a pamphlet or guidebook or something. Maybe he should write out a list of questions for Quin to answer. Assuming they survived this unholy hunting expedition. The animal yipped again, answered by another call a moment later. Matheus jumped across the rails to another train of thought, as the first one sped toward Future Therapy Canyon.

“Quin?”

“Yeah?”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Quin shrugged a shoulder. “Around seventeen hundred years. Unless you’re asking how old I was when I died. Then I’m twenty-five.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No.”

“You’re been walking around for seventeen hundred years? What have you been doing? Doesn’t it get boring?”

Quin laughed softly. He shifted, catching Matheus with an arm around the waist before he toppled over.

Matheus tensed, and Quin started to pull away.

“Nmm,” said Matheus.

Quin put his arm back.

Matheus rationalized with every bit of denial he possessed, but came down to the fact that men with crossbows wanted to kill him, and Quin kept that from happening, so Matheus would curl around him like a teddy bear if he thought he could get away with it.

“The world keeps changing,” Quin said. “I like new things. Some of our kind don’t. They cling to their times. Eventually, the world gets too different and they can’t handle it. Then they go into the sun.”

“Are there any as old as you?”

“Some. Not many.”

“Well, aren’t you special,” said Matheus.

“Just like my father told me.”

A smile flickered over Matheus’ lips. He angled his head, trying to catch a glimpse of the night sky. The moon highlighted the leaves above with a silvery glow. Matheus tugged at the collar of his jacket, silently cursing the idiots who valued style over a warm neck. He didn’t remember the fall ever being this cold before. After a moment, he realized—no more body heat. No wonder he felt colder than usual. Matheus swore inwardly. Did he need to start carrying around hot water bottles?

“I haven’t spent all that time awake, though,” Quin said, interrupting Matheus’ inner diatribe.

“What do you mean?” Matheus asked.

“It’s like hibernation, except we sleep for decades, centuries. It’s necessary after a certain point, or you’ll go insane.”

“How long before I have to do it?”

“Four hundred, five hundred years. If you live that long,” said Quin.

“Thanks,” Matheus said. “That’s very comforting.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” He stretched, depriving Matheus of his pillow. Quin stood up, shifting his weight back and forth to test his wounded leg. “We should keep moving. Only six hours to sunrise.”

Matheus groaned. He mangled a sapling in his effort to stand. The sapling never recovered from the assault, seeking therapy later in life. Matheus, unaware of the sapling’s torment, awkwardly propped the skinny trunk against a bigger tree in the hope that it would sort itself out.
Plants are resilient, aren’t they? They grow through rocks and pavements and other such things, right?

“Sunshine, leave the poor tree alone,” said Quin.

“It looks pathetic,” said Matheus.

“That’s because you killed it. Come on.”

“I didn’t kill it,” Matheus muttered.

“Yes, you did. Come. On.”

“At this rate, I’m not going to last until I’m twenty-nine,” Matheus said. “More running?”

“More running.”

“Super.”