The Living Night (Book 2) (6 page)

"Balls of steel," said the Hunter.

"Head of rocks," Ruegger said.

"Sit, my good man."

So Lavaca joined the meeting by the fire. The
four talked for what seemed to Ruegger a long time. It was apparent that
Kharker had taken an immediate liking to Harry, and he made a wide effort to
include the mortal in conversation, an effort Harry indulged.

Despite all the werewolf's cruelties, Ruegger
felt his judgments about Kilian thawing a little. Not enough to spare the
bastard, should it come to that, but thawing nonetheless. Ruegger found
himself
thinking Kilian could've been
him
sixty years
ago and reminded himself that all individuals had the power to change, if only
they had the desire. Perhaps there was hope for the swine-killer yet—although,
in all likelihood, the Darkling doubted Kilian would live long enough to
exploit it.

About forty minutes into the gathering, a
nightmarish figure appeared framed in the doorway. Harry gasped.

Human-shaped and human-clothed but with the
erect head of a wolf, a cigarette dangled from the creature’s sharp-toothed
smile.

"I'm hungry,"
Cloire announced, her lycanthropic lips forming the words perfectly. "Are
we going to go on this goddamned Hunt or am I going to have to eat one of you
fuckwads
instead?"

*
    
*
    
*

Danielle
joined them outside, where the catacombs met the fresh air and where the
clearing between mansion and jungle was at its narrowest. She looked weary and
distracted, so Ruegger went to her with his arms outstretched. She buried her
face against his chest and clasped her hands behind his back.

"I love you," she whispered.
"God, I love you."

He stroked her head, smelling the jungle and the
sweat and the perfume in her hair, and told her that he loved her too. Catching
him by surprise, she rose up on her toes and kissed him full on the lips,
exerting a pressure and a passion in the motion that scared him. It seemed far
too much like a good-bye. She tore herself away and wiped at her
eyes .

"Rueg," she said, smiling.

He saw Kilian and Cloire leaning against the
wall, both naked and wearing the heads of wolves. Their
wolfen
faces were strangely animated, smiling with bright mean eyes, tongues lolling
happily from between needle-sharp teeth in anticipation of the blood to come. Cloire
leaned over and licked Kilian on the shoulder; in return, he licked her under
the left eye. They were holding hands.

Kharker, meanwhile, was taking off his robe and
hanging it next to the other werewolves' on one of a row of pegs that sprouted
from the wall. Now he, too, was in the flesh.

Harry Lavaca remained off to the side, looking
disgusted. Ruegger couldn't blame him—but then Harry didn't feel the hunger,
the
need
, that
burned inside the immortals.

Ruegger and Danielle smiled at each other and
began helping the other disrobe. When they too were naked and the clothes hung
on pegs, they turned to Kharker, whose eyes sparkled contently behind the smoke
of his cigar. Withdrawing it from his mouth, he gave a long whistle, and Gavin
emerged from the catacombs.

"Are the prisoners ready?" asked the
Hunter.

"They're ready.”

"Send them out."

Gavin bowed his head and disappeared back into
the darkness of the catacombs, where Ruegger could hear a large number of
humans murmuring and moving about. He could smell their fear.

The immortals arranged themselves on either side
of the tunnel opening, so that their quarry would have to pass through a
gauntlet on their way into the jungle.

Gavin issued a shout from within, and the humans
streamed forth from the catacombs, a score or more, naked and muscled and
lithe. Strangely, none of them were armed and Ruegger realized that this was
supposed to be a slaughter, pure and simple. It was this that Kharker thought
would bind his guests in friendship. Ruegger counted ten of the humans wearing
the black collars that signaled that they were the murderers assigned to him
and Danielle. Then the tide of flesh surged ungracefully into the jungle,
vanishing but for their shouts and
crashings
.

Something moved off to his right. Ruegger
observed Kilian and Cloire dropping to all fours, their bodies slipping from one
form to another, becoming larger and more nightmarish than even the most
hideous wolf. Still, in their own demonic way, they were beautiful. They
glanced at each other once, then lifted their heads and loosed a howl of pure primal
joy and dominance. They tore off after their prey, their bodies gleaming quicksilver
under the moon, and disappeared into the suicidal tangle of the Congo.

Looking gray, Harry turned back toward the
mansion.

Danielle squeezed Ruegger's hand. He searched
for Kharker, but the Hunter was already gone, leaving only his still-smoking
cigar behind on the ground, and Ruegger imagined that he could feel the old
monster watching him from the forest.

"Let's go," Danielle
said,
and hand-in-hand they made their way to the jungle
wall.

*
    
*
    
*

They
were surrounded by the sounds of life and death all around them, vines and
trees and endless undergrowth obscuring all but the nearest sights. As the
vampires ran on and their bloodlust consumed them, they became increasingly
swallowed by this lush world, the rest of the Earth receding to shadows. This
is where it all began, thought Ruegger, in this land where everything is moist
and deep and new.

He and Danielle chased the sounds and scents of
fleeing humans through the green chaos, sometimes hand-in-hand and sometimes
running separately, but always together, always in synch. To him it seemed that
time was distorted here, that this place was some limbo where seconds couldn't
be distinguished from years. He just ran and ran, sensing his murderous quarry
in front of him and Danielle by his side.

In the distance, he could hear the screams of
humans as Kilian and Cloire brought down their first victims. With them, the
smell of blood exploded into the air, overwhelming the scent of vegetation.

Suddenly, he was running alone … and realized
he'd been running alone for some time, chasing scents and sounds without regard
to anything but sensation. He slowed, and knotted spires spun crazily above
him. He stood perfectly still, listening for Danielle, but she was gone.

"Ruegger," he heard, and spun to face
Kharker, sitting patiently nearby on the fallen corpse of a large tree.

"Danielle," Ruegger said, his mind not
quite caught up with the situation.

"Don't worry, my son. She's off hunting.
Alone.
It won't kill you to let her be by herself for awhile.
Or for you to be by yourself, for that matter.”

"I don't want to lose her, Kharker. Not here."

Kharker smiled. "You're not going to lose
her.
Just calm down.
Breathe deeply."

Warily, Ruegger nodded. Where had Kharker come
from?

The Hunter hopped easily off his perch, his
agility making a lie of his aged appearance. "We haven't
Hunted
together in ... well, it's been forever,” he said.

"What do you want?"

Kharker looked pained. "What do you think I
want, cub.
To be with you, like we were before.
To Hunt and to talk and to share one
anothers
’
lives.
Simple, really.
It's pretty much all
I've ever wanted. I want us to enjoy life, and enjoy it together—in the way
that only we can."

"And
Jean-Pierre."

"I haven't forgotten him, Ruegger, don't
worry. But the albino's heart belongs with Danielle, you know that. Even when
he's with me, he thinks of her. You, on the other hand: you think of me ... even
when you're with Danielle."

"I know you
want
that to believe
that, Kharker, but ...”

"But?"

"I don't know." Ruegger grimaced,
feeling the twitching of his fingers that told him it was time for a cigarette.
He sighed. "We never finished it, did we?"

The Hunter smiled, faintly.

"No," he said. "We didn't. You
left before it could run its course. There is, however, the possibility that it
never would have."

"We did have something, didn't we?"

"Whatever the hell it was. It was the
happiest time of my life.
Enough words.
Words are only
symbols of what I want to convey to you, but symbols just aren't good enough.
Come here, Ruegger. Taste my blood, just a few sips so that you can change like
I can change, and we'll be wolves together, hunting."

Ruegger hesitated.

"Don't worry," coaxed the Hunter.
"We'll only feed off the ones with the black collars. But let's be about
it quickly, before Cloire and Kilian kill them all."

The Darkling stepped forward and drank from the arm
of his mentor and friend. The blood tasted hot against his lips and spurted
refreshingly down his throat.
A richness
began to
throb through his system like some hybrid of crystal meth and heroin, shooting
through his veins and mind like hallucinogenic lightning.

"Jesus," he whispered, stumbling
backward. "I’d forgotten how powerful you are.”

Kharker smiled. Surprising himself, Ruegger
smiled back.

"Shall we
began
?"
asked the Hunter.

Ruegger set off into the jungle with the old
werewolf at his side, feeling the relentless energy burning in his limbs, his
eyes wide and omniscient. Without conscious thought, he leapt to the ground and
began running on all fours, a hungry happy beast with of tender humans wafting
on the breeze.
Bad humans, of course.
It was important
that the humans be bad, although right now Ruegger couldn't quite grasp what
the reasoning behind that was. Meat was meat.

The humans fled before them, scattering like leaves
at the immortals' advance. Through gullies and a stream, over little hills and
beneath massive logs, the Hunt continued, Ruegger's human half fleeing further
with every gleeful lunge.

When the bloodlust got too great, he kept up a
steady mantra to preserve his identity:
I am the Vampire Ruegger. I am the
Vampire Ruegger. I am the Vampire Ruegger. I eat only those who deserve it.

He and Kharker drove through a thick mesh of
bushes, flushing out several humans into a small clearing between giant trees.
In less than a second, the wolves fell upon them, the beasts' heavily muscled
weight and momentum knocking the mortals to the ground.

Ruegger's claws bore into the hard back of a
black-collared man as his iron teeth closed around the human's neck, breaking
it with a satisfyingly gruesome sound, blood spilling out, hot and copious.

With a growl, Ruegger began to feed.

*
    
*
    
*

Afterwards,
Ruegger and Kharker rested in companionable silence. They could've left
immediately to bring down another meal, but they chose to luxuriate in the kill
and their rekindled brotherhood. Spattered with blood and picking at a chunk of
flesh between his two front teeth, Ruegger smiled contentedly.

"I miss this.”

"Ah, so do
I
,"
said Kharker. “I wish
this
last few hours would repeat
itself day in and day out for another millenium."

"I think I can see now why you're building
the alligator swamp."

"That's just the start, my boy.
Wait'll
the zoo is completed; it's going to be something
else!" With a sigh, he heaved himself to
to
his
feet. "Well, my meal is settled now. Let's go after the next one, shall
we."

Ruegger rose. "I think I'd better be making
my way back to Danielle."

"That can wait for awhile, but the human
retrieval units will be deployed in an hour or thereabouts, so we'd better make
the most of this while we still can."

Ruegger hesitated. "Tempting, Khark. But
Danielle's been acting strange. I'd think I'd better head back before she
spends any more time with Cloire."

"Hold off on that for a little while, won't
you? Your Danielle can take care of herself, but I think my stomach's starting
to growl again."

"Well, I really—"

"Not just now, my son."

The Hunter motioned with his hands for Ruegger
to come to him, so that they could begin hunting again, but Ruegger saw a flash
of something guarded cross Kharker's face. All of a sudden he
knew
.

"Shit," said Ruegger.
"You goddamned
bastard
.
I can't believe you would
do
this to me. Damn you!"