Hunter of the Dead Read Free

His teeth were still sticky with plasma, and the vital fluid dribbled out of his mouth, leaving a mark around his lips and chin like a clown’s goatee of circus makeup. He wore a jumpsuit identical to Miranda’s, though his was red instead of gray, not to mention clean and freshly ironed. Square plastic sunglasses obscured almost the entire top half of his face, leaving him unreadable despite his rictus grin. His skin sparkled in the low neon lights overhead. It made Miranda want to reach out and touch him.
    “Well, well, well,” Scav said, “if it isn’t the Profane Prophet of Provo. How’s tricks, Cashley?”
    Miranda looked to the master for some clue what was going on or what to do. His nostrils were flaring, but otherwise he made no move.
    “I’m afraid I haven’t any change for you, Scavatelli. My House makes do without the pettiness of money.”
    “You hear that, Connor? ‘My House’ he says. You’re House Signari, shit-eater,” Scavatelli gestured at the white stripe down his face, “at least, you were until the lepress declared you persona non grata .”
    MacVicar reached behind a pew and pulled one of the sacred texts out of the slot. Miranda lowered her eyes at the sight of the familiar black book, with its depiction of two arms coming together to hold a red apple. MacVicar tossed the book carelessly and it landed on the ground by the master’s head. Miranda stifled a gasp at the display of blasphemy. MacVicar bent over and ran a pair of fingers across the master’s skin. He rubbed the two fingers across his thumb and held it up for Scav to see.
    “Glitter,” Scav said with a laugh.
    MacVicar stuck his hand into the master’s mouth, and though he instantly bit down, severing several of MacVicar’s fingers, MacVicar struggled with him until finally wrenching his fangs out of his face and revealing them to be prosthetics.
    “Fake teeth. Fake blood. All this shit is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors for the mortals. I always knew you were into some funny business with your circle, Cashley, but I never thought you’d take it to the level of treason.”
    “I have every right to establish my own House. I have been in the American West since before Brigham Young…”
    MacVicar stamped down on the master’s face, squishing his head like a soggy pumpkin. Miranda gasped, but then watched in wonder as the shattered chunks of skull and pulverized brain knitted themselves back together and his entire head reformed, like a balloon reinflating. Only his thick plastic goggles didn’t mend. The pallid, white, pupilless orbs housed in his eye sockets and the wretched landscape of scars connecting them told the tale of why he always kept that half of his face hidden.
    “Pull the other one,” MacVicar spat at him.
    “Please, Mac, Scav,” the master whimpered, finally sounding as though he understood how precarious his position was, “you don’t understand the danger. There’s something hunting our kind.”
    “Oh, yes, I’ve heard this fairy tale. There’s a,” Scav made quotation marks with his fingers, “‘serial killer’ taking out immortals.”
    “Aye, I heard about that, too,” MacVicar agreed, “Probably just some Inquisitors getting too big for their britches.”
    The master shook his head wildly.
    “No. You don’t understand. It’s far worse than you can possibly imagine. I need other immortals to help protect me, and Father Otto won’t grant me permission to turn even a single get.”
    “Knowing you, Cash,” MacVicar said, “I wouldnae either.”
    Suddenly the brass bell at the lone entrance to the compound began ringing. Miranda looked up to one of the guard towers. A spotlight shone on Inessa’s chambers, illuninating the carnage within. An instant later the spotlight turned its attention to Miranda.
    Dodging two poorly aimed rounds, she scurried into the chapel.
    “Well, that’ll be the alarm,” MacVicar said, “I’d been hoping we might get a decent scrap out of this