Part 1 (1/2)

Slayer.

Death Becomes Him.

By Karen Koehler.

Preface.

NOTE FROM THE LIBRARIAN:.

As a general rule, we only put t.i.tles up in the Library which have been published by Baen Books. The princ.i.p.al reason for this is simply to avoid complications regarding rights with other publishers.

We are making an exception in the case of Karen Koehler's novel SLAYER. Although the novel is published by another publisher, Karen owns the electronic rights and asked us to put it up in the Library. Seeing no reason not to, we agreed. Those readers who enjoy the story and would like to obtain it in paper format can order it through Amazon.com or Barnesandn.o.ble.com or directly from the publisher.

And now, I will turn you over to Karen herself, who wrote a little introduction at my request.

Eric Flint Dear Reader: Welcome to the world of Slayer, a dark universe peopled by vampires, their lovers, allies and hunters. Here in this dark place nothing is as it seems and there is a b.l.o.o.d.y war for survival going on in the alleys and byways of our world.

Thank you for taking the time to download and read this ebook, the first in an ongoing series. The sequel Slayer: Bloodlines, will be emerging (escaping?) in late fall, 2001.

But before I tell you about myself I would like to extend a special thank you to Mr. Eric Flint and Mr. Jim Baen for including this book in the Baen Free Library, despite my not being a Baen author. Thank you both for the inclusion. I was born in the heart of haunted New England in 1973 and use this as a viable excuse for the literature I write.

(Hehehehe.) Early in life I was lucky enough to be exposed to some of the most talented and prominent writers of modern SF and fantasy literature today, including Isaac Asimov, Anne Rice, Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, Kristine Katherine Rusch and Ray Bradbury.

As a sidenote, SLAYER now has a fan site located atand the book is now available in trade paperback format.

Purchase it online at <http: =”” slayer.html=””> or at your favorite online books out let.

Yours most Sinisterly, Karen Koehler

1.

”Sweet Sorrows” appears courtesy of Wayne Heath an d Black Death Music.

Copyright 1998 by Wayne Heath.

Sorrow churning up inside Deep within it does reside Pus.h.i.+ng you towards homicide Retribution I do command Into you it does expand This thing you can't withstand So scream if you can Slow to understand I've been there and I always have Dreading your fears To you they do adhere And becoming a prison cell Your neverending living h.e.l.l Sweet is my embrace Propelling you towards disgrace Constricting your breathing s.p.a.ce Punishment I demand Gaining the upper hand Destroying this your wonderland So scream if you can Slow to understand I've been there and I always have Dreading your fears To you they do adhere And becoming a prison cell Your neverending living h.e.l.l He ll to you I bestow You're beginning to overflow With this my final death blow Moving slowly master hand Hour gla.s.s out of sand Welcome to No Man's Land So scream if you can Slow to understand I've been there and I always have Dreadi ng your fears To you th ey do adhere And becoming a prison cell Your neverending living h.e.l.l Wayne Heath ”Sweet Sorrow” Having a great deal of time on their hands, and being a relatively closed society, all vampires were natural gossips. The old proverb which stated that one can trust only the dead with one's secrets did not take into account the vampire. They lived on secrets as much as on blood. They were avid voyeurs by nature. And what was gossip--and vampirism--but the act of subsisting on another's life? The slayer knew then, accordingly, that the story circulating around the East Village and parts of SoHo and Prospect Park had been embellished many times over and bore little if any resemblance to the truth. Still, he was prepared for anything. What else could he do? He could no more preguess an unstudied vampire's reaction to an affront then he could pick through the tatters of downtown hearsay and determine the ultimate truth--if indeed one existed.

In any event, Empirius, the proprietor of the Abyssus, a lower Lower East Side nightclub, and master of the hive of vampires contained therein, invited him in graciously. The slayer bowed low and kissed his ring.

”Your Grace.”

”Welcome,” Empirius said in his sibilant whisper. He was impeccably dressed, of course--grey Armani suit, red silk blouse, a gold papal cross pinned up tight under his chin. His dark blonde hair was combed straight back and tied in a three-inch ponytail, noticeable when he canted his head to one side like a curious cat. His eyes were tiny but brilliant, the black overexpanded irises reflecting the candlelight like chips of flint. His smile showed a row of perfect teeth. ”You look most...disarming tonight, Master Alek.”

The old vampire had enough cla.s.s not to say anything in response to the slayer's long-coated appearance, but he could not help but keep a malicious splinter of glee out of his bloodshot eyes. Already he was thinking of what outrageous tales he would spin for his thralls after this night was done. A slayer here to brush against the souls of the outcast in his coat and cloak of long long hair, a warrior who wore his armor on the inside, Death, not Red but black and white--white-faced and black-clad, the lottery cast. But for whom? his Judastine eyes asked.

The pit was crowded tonight. Amongst the stained-gla.s.s images of redemption and repentance, the low stone altars and statues carved with sensual reverence and the spa.r.s.e illumination of a mult.i.tude of votive candles the humans served. Spare, white-pale bodies like slaughtered swans, but alive, or nearly so. ”Take me,” they said to the slayer mistakenly, and ”My blood is young.” Others lied. ”I've never been tasted” and ”A virgin's nectar is the sweetest”. It was their thoughts, their living emotions as much as their words that the slayer encountered as he made his way to the bar.

The club was a swamp of incense, sandalwood or clove or some such sweet smoke undercut by the hot metallic tang of blood and pa.s.sion. The slayer spotted a beautifully androgynous vampire bleeding a mortal boy perhaps no more than fifteen years. The boy's white flesh looked nearly translucent, the ropes of his young veins strained near to the point of collapse. It was probably his duty to intervene, the slayer thought, except that from the gleam of old knowledge in the vampire's eye, the boy was probably a tenfold safer in its arms than on the street or in the overfilled holding cell of the communal NYPD bullpen downtown.

Still, the sight of the vampire's languid slat-ribbed wh.o.r.e sent a s.h.i.+ver down the slayer's spine. He'd been outside this crowd too long. He supposed he'd begun to believe on some subconscious level the esthetic tales of cinema vampires and vampire novels, the black cloaks and garlic and coffins and casual murders. If the vampire race were that stupid and evil it would not have survived this long. The boy, like so many other wh.o.r.es in other parts of the city, would probably be leading a miserable life as slave to vice and one human pimp or other were it not for this vampire.

The slayer moved on.

Salvadori was behind the bar tonight. Greased and pin-striped, he looked as much the part of the Sicilian goodfellow as Marlon Brando ever did in his heyday. He nodded at the slayer's approach and started the workings of a Long Island Ice Tea before the slayer shook his head no. Sal's eyebrows peaked. On duty?

”Good crowd?” the slayer asked, coming abreast with the bar.

”Always. Someone new every night. Don't know where they all come from. Masochism seems to be the thing. Must be the new city legislative.”

”Possibly. So who's new?”

Sal shrugged. ”No new vamps, just victims. Everyone wants to be a victim.” He dropped his voice to a whisper and glanced around conspiratorially, ”Personally, I think they just want to feel sorry for themselves, if you know what I mean.”

Sal was a monster and a murderer, but no liar. There were no new vampires here that the slayer was consciously aware of. Disciples, yes, there were always those--deviants and lowlifes and groupies behind the mask of sanctified stone and veil, mortal prost.i.tutes who serviced their masters' needs in exchange for the rare sweet high of blood loss that could be achieved through no known conventional drug. Then there were those who believed like a religion in their hearts that if they commingled with the vampires they might somehow mystically gain the rare genetic factor that permanently separated the breeds. But nothing save the young boy from earlier was suspect here. Empirius ran his hive like a militia, with strict attention to etiquette.

He never allowed rogues to remain within the walls of his establishment for very long. Bad for business. If it got around the East Village that he was letting the psychotic muck of vampire society into his hive, if bodies started turning up in the Hudson, the mortals were more apt to pilgrimage to some of the safer uptown clubs to get their fixes. Something like that could ruin a reputation.

Which led to another line of thinking.

”Where's Akisha?” the slayer asked.

Sal shrugged. ”With Empirius?” He was shooting seltzer into a gla.s.s, trying to avoid talk and trying unsuccessfully to be casual about it. The slayer knew Sal had no more love of police than any of his mortal a.s.sociates had during Prohibition. And with Coven there was always an added aspect of mortal danger.

”Empirius is alone,” the slayer stated. ”Don't f.u.c.k me around, Sal.”

Sal held up his hands in defense. ”Probably she's upstairs, sulking over some young G.o.d of a child. You know Akisha.” He moved evasively to the side to attend a newcomer.

The slayer let him go. There was no reason to detain the barkeep over what was obvious. If he knew Akisha- -and he thought he did--Salvadori was probably right. Among other talk in the Village was rumor that Akisha was phasing herself out of vampire society. The once-proud and arrogant Black Queen was skulking free of her admirers' attention like some aging Hollywood actress craving the dark to hide her many shames. Some said it was age; other said it was Empirius's victory in dissolving her former Upper West End hive, the fortress of the mad vampire c.u.m alchemist Carfax. It was rumored that Akisha wept for the first time in two centuries the day Carfax was brought to bay by the Coven and destroyed. Was it not so far-fetched then to believe that her subsequent forced bonding to Empirius might have caused her enough bitterness to want to tarnish the name of her new lover with a few heinous crimes?

A darkness flickered at the tail of the slayer's eye and here she came, the mistress of the hive, the devilless herself, like something conjured by thought alone. She looked twenty-five or thirty, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket, short s.h.i.+ny-black pageboy hair contrasting beautifully with her very white skin, smooth and poreless like the best Han jade. Her left nostril was pierced through with a length of narrow chain that found its glittering way to her left ear. For the past year or so Empirius's mate had been experimenting with the hip-punk Lower East Side look so popular in the club and sub-culture scene, yet even so she had managed to loose nothing of the regalcy--or ferocity--of her rich old shugo blood. Her eyes moved a.n.a.lytically across the room, then snapped around to find the slayer sitting alone and conspicuous in the center of her lover's hive.

”Alek,” she said, coming upon him immediately. ”It has been a long time, hasn't it? Business or pleasure?”

She raised one raven-black brow in blatant challenge.

And he wanted nothing more than to answer her with a gentlemanly smile and respond the latter, but the night was wearing on, the random murders in the East Village acc.u.mulating, and the Coven's business could be put off only so long.

The long darkly paneled room above the club was respected by all in the hive as Akisha's private s.p.a.ce, a place of interrupted retreat where the mistress of the hive could lock herself away when her thinking grew too complex for distraction or she wanted to be alone with one of her boys. According to the stories the slayer had heard, not even Empirius was welcome here. So it came as something of a surprise when Akisha invited the slayer up.

She lit a single candle and set it on the mantle as the slayer wandered soundlessly down the chamber. No less than four paintings of Akisha lined the gallery at the far end. The oldest was an ornately Romantic nude, possibly Matisse, except the colors looked too dark. A Klimt then. Changeless eternal Akisha. In every incarnation she had the same narrow hips and small high young-girls b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the slender long legs and warrior's muscle tone, the same somber dark eyes and s.h.i.+mmering furlike hair. The second portrait was a Weimer Berlin, by the slayer's educated guess, this one a fully-clothed Akisha in SS uniform. Long hair sc.r.a.ped back and severe, she stared out of the portrait with d.a.m.ning eyes, expression grimly defiant in a 1930's world that had gone mad around her. The third was a 1960's-style psychedelic kitsch of red and purple with a mermaid Akisha superimposed over a blazing red sun presumably going supernova on her.

The final painting was done by the slayer himself, with Akisha very much like she was right now, dressed in black satin and steel, her hair an arrogantly streaming cloak at her back. Although a product of the Absolute Realism school the slayer belonged to, the picture showed Akisha as only one of her own kind would see her, eyes diamond-hard and predatory and scarcely able to hide an ages-old sorrow and l.u.s.t.

Without ado, or excuse, Akisha went to a low stone divan and lay down over the gracefully slumbering body of her newest interest. A college boy he looked like, someone scarcely out of his virgin skin where vampire wh.o.r.es were concerned--his body had not yet acquired the gaunt paleness or loss of muscle tone so evident of an old hack. Holding the young man's body like a strange, Eastern-inspired Madonna, Akisha lapped like a wolf at the rivulets of blood coursing down his face from the crown of barbed wire the slayer a.s.sumed the mistress herself had affixed to his shaven head.