Excerpt

Vampires are inherently creatures of the ground. Associated always with the earth in which they were buried, they are also extremely territorial. Good hunting ground is hard to come by, and once claimed, most vampires would go to any length to keep it. Sometimes their bond with the earth ran so strong a vampire could never leave it. They had to carry it with them, a constant reminder darkening their footsteps. When their forms shifted into that of whatever beast, they ran on all fours, close to the ground, salting the earth with their passing.

But Card liked to be above his surroundings, in height if not in metaphor.

All around the city spread out beneath him: an endlessly black sea on which floated tiny pinpoints of light. Currents of traffic coursed gold and red, as clogged as a city of this size’s arteries would be.

A predator’s perch.

It was a city of scents. There, on the wind, a complex collage of garbage, human filth, hot fumes, rotten food, and decaying flesh. A stagnant, toxic mess of waste left out in the summer’s humidity to disintegrate into the ground. That so precious earth.

At least up here, it was possible to find brief respite from the stench when the wind died. Then it was quiet. It was still. The sounds of the city muffled so far below they may as well have been from another world.

But, inevitably, Syd had to open his mouth.

“Which would you rather be? A rubber duck or a wind-up pink rabbit?”

Card enjoyed the rooftop perch and the serenity it offered. A good view without being seen. A perfect vantage point to sort out what valuable pieces of information the cityscape had to offer. It was only when Syd came up with these abrupt suppositions that Card began to calculate the odds of tossing him over the roof’s edge and onto the sidewalk thirty-some stories below.

Card would have sighed heavily, if he was still in the habit of breathing.

“Is that relevant to…anything?”

Syd set his chin in one hand.

“I’d go with the rabbit. At least then you’re mobile.”

Card set his hands in his coat pockets and looked out into the wind, determined not to provide Syd any encouragement.

“I sure wouldn’t wanna be a rubber duck. Can you imagine that? Having to watch the same person bathe every day for their entire life? Gross!”

Card’s eyes narrowed. If only people bathed every day.

“Besides, even as a wind-up pink rabbit, I could still play my drums.”

“This is why you’re not allowed to get bored,” Card rumbled. “You devote too much thought to these sorts of things.”

“I only come up with them because I am bored,” Syd pouted, and shifted his chin to his other hand. He crouched on the roof’s edge, a squat complement to Card’s tall, stationary guard. “How long have we been sitting here?”

“You’ve been sitting. I’ve been standing.” The reflective sheen of Card’s sunglasses tilted down towards Syd. “If you have something better to do with your time, then by all means—”

He stopped, abruptly and suddenly, his posture snapping to rigid attention like a well-trained dog. Card left the rest of his words unspoken as he turned his face back into the wind. He tilted his chin up, drawing in a deliberately slow breath between parted teeth.

Syd blinked at the change. “What is it?”

“Blood,” Card growled.

It was faint. The merest hint of it on the air. But it was enough.

Syd stood up and brushed down his jeans. “Well, go on, then.”

There was no effort in the movement. No planned path of thought beforehand. Card took off into the night, at one with the black. He darted across rooftops as the fleeting impression of a shadow, not even the sound or mark of a footprint left to indicate he had been there. He had found his trail, and no distance or persuasion of gravity would deter him from it.

Card was a hunter, and the epitome of the very ideal.

Syd watched him go, hands in the back pockets of his jeans as he chuckled a little and shook his head.

“You’d think he was afraid of missing something.”

He took the stairs.

Robbery by Michelle Herndon can be purchased alone or with six other works in the September Issue of Phase 5 Monthly Review (Volume 1, Issue 2).

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