Swords of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher Read online

  Vampire... revenant ... that which returns...

  He’d never seen one of the undead, and didn’t know anyone who had. He wasn’t altogether sure he believed in such things, but then, he didn’t disbelieve in them either. In his time he’d known demons and devils, werewolves and undines, and faced them all with cold steel in his hand. The world had its dark places, and they were older by far than anything man had ever built. And there was no denying that people had disappeared from the Northside of late ... and one person in particular.

  “Well?” said Fisher.

  Hawk looked at her irritably. “Well what?”

  “Well, are we going to just stand here all afternoon, or are we going to do something? In case you hadn’t noticed, the sun’s getting bloody low on the sky. It’ll be dark inside an hour. And if there really is a vampire in there ...”

  “Right. The undead rise from their coffins when the sun is down.” Hawk shivered again, and then smiled slightly as he took in the goose flesh on Fisher’s bare arms. Neither of them cared much for the dark, or the creatures that moved in it. Hawk took a deep breath, stepped up to the front door, and knocked loudly with his fist.

  “Open in the name of the Guard!”

  There was no response. Silence lay. across the empty street like a smothering blanket, weighed down by the heat. Hawk wiped at the sweat running down his face with the back of his hand, and wished he’d brought a water canteen. He also wished he’d followed regulations for once and waited for a backup team, but there hadn’t been time. They had to get to the vampire while he still slept. And besides, Councillor Trask’s daughter was still missing. Which was why finding the vampire had suddenly become such a high priority. As long as he’d kept to the poorer sections of the city, and preyed only on those who wouldn’t be missed, no one paid much attention to him. But once he snatched a Councillor’s daughter out of her own bedroom, in full view of her screaming mother ... Hawk worried his lower lip between his teeth. She should still be alive. Vampires were supposed to take two to three days to drain a victim completely, and she couldn’t become one of the undead until she’d died and risen again. At least, that was what the legends said. Hawk sniffed. He didn’t put much trust in legends.

  “We should have stopped off and picked up some garlic,” he said suddenly. “That’s supposed to be a protection, isn’t it?”

  “Garlic?” said Fisher. “At this time of the year? You know how much that stuff costs in the markets? It has to come clear across the country, and the merchants charge accordingly.”

  “All right, it was just a thought. I suppose hawthorn is out as well.”

  “Definitely.”

  “I assume you have at least brought the stake with you? In fact, you’d better have the stake, because I’m bloody well not going in there without one.”

  “Relax, love. I’ve got it right here.” Fisher pulled a thick wooden stake from the top of her boot. It was over a foot long, and had been roughly sharpened to a point. It looked brutally efficient. “As I understand it, it’s quite simple,” said Fisher briskly. “I hammer this through the vampire’s heart, and then you cut off his head. We burn the two parts of the body separately, scatter the ashes, and that’s that.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Hawk. “Just like that.” He paused a moment, looking at the closed door before him. “Did you ever meet Trask, or his daughter?”

  “I saw Trask at the briefing yesterday,” said Fisher, slipping the stake back into her boot. “He looked pretty broken up. You know them?”

  “I met his daughter a few months back. Just briefly. I was bodyguarding Councillor DeGeorge at the time. Trask’s daughter had just turned sixteen, and she looked so ... bright, and happy.”

  Fisher put her hand on his arm. “We’ll get her back, Hawk. We’ll get her back.”

  “Yeah,” said Hawk. “Sure.”

  He hammered on the door again with his fist. Do it by the book.... The sound echoed on the quiet, and then died quickly away. There was no response from the house, or from any of its neighbours. Hawk glanced up and down the empty street. It could always be a trap of some kind.... No. His instincts would have been screaming at him by now. After four years in the city Guard, he had good instincts. Without them, you didn’t last four years.

  “All right,” he said finally. “We go in. But watch your back on this one, lass. We take it one room at a time, by the book, and keep our eyes open. Right?”

  “Right,” said Fisher. “But we should be safe enough as long as the sun’s up. The vampire can’t leave his coffin till it’s dark.”

  “Yeah, but he might not be alone in there. Apparently most vampires have a human servant to watch over them while they sleep. A kind of Judas Goat, a protector who also helps to lure victims to his master.”

  “You’ve been reading up on this, haven’t you?” said Fisher.

  “Damn right,” said Hawk. “Ever since the first rumours. I wasn’t going to be caught unprepared, like I was on that werewolf case last year.”

  He tried the door handle. It turned jerkily in his hand, and the door swung slowly open as he applied a little pressure. The hinges squealed protestingly, and Hawk jumped despite himself. He pushed the door wide open and stared into the dark and empty hall. Nothing moved in the gloom, and the shadows stared silently back. Fisher moved softly in beside Hawk, her hand resting on the pommel of her sword.

  “Strange the door wasn’t locked,” said Hawk. “Unless we were expected.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” said Fisher quietly. “I’m starting to get a very bad feeling about this.”

  They stepped forward into the hall and then closed the front door behind them, leaving it just a little ajar. Never know when you might need a quick exit. Hawk and Fisher stood together in the gloom, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Hawk had a stub of candle in his pocket, but he didn’t want to use it unless. he had to. All it took was a sudden gust of wind at the wrong moment and the light would be gone, leaving him blind and helpless in the dark. Better to let his sight adjust while he had the chance. He heard Fisher stir uneasily beside him, and he smiled slightly. He knew how she felt. Patiently standing and waiting just wasn’t in their nature; they always felt better when they were doing something. Anything. Hawk glared about him into the gloom. There could be someone hiding in the shadows, watching them, and they’d never know it until it was too late. Something could already be moving silently towards them, with reaching hands and bared fangs.... He felt his shoulders growing stiff and tense, and made himself breathe deeply and slowly. It didn’t matter what was out there; he had his axe and he had Fisher at his side. Nothing else mattered. His eyesight slowly grew used to the gloom, and the narrow hall gradually formed itself out of the shadows. It was completely empty. Hawk relaxed a little.

  “You all right?” he whispered to Fisher.

  “Yeah, fine,” she said quietly. “Let’s go.”

  The hall ended in a bare wooden stairway that led up to the next floor. Two doors led off from the hall, one to each side. Hawk drew his axe, and hefted it in one hand. The heavy weight of it was reassuring. He glanced at Fisher, and smiled as he saw the sword in her hand. He caught her eye, and gestured for her to take the right-hand door while he took the left. She nodded, and padded quietly over to the right.

  Hawk listened carefully at his door, but everything was quiet. He turned the handle, eased the door open an inch, and then kicked it in. He leapt into the room and glared quickly about him, his axe poised and ready. The room was empty. There was no furniture, and all the walls were bare. A little light filtered past the closed shutters, taking the edge off the gloom. The woodwork was flecked with mould, and everywhere was thick with dust. There was no sign to show the room had ever been lived in. The floorboards creaked loudly under Hawk’s weight as he walked slowly forward. There was a strong smell of dust and rotten wood, but underneath that there was a faint but definite smell of corruption, as though something long dead lay buried close at hand. Hawk sni
ffed at the air, but couldn’t decide if the smell was really there or if he was just imagining it. He moved quickly round the room, tapping the walls and listening to the echo, but there was no trace of any hidden panel or passageway. Hawk stood in the middle of the room, looking around him to check he hadn’t missed anything, and then went back into the hall.

  Fisher was waiting for him. He shook his head, and Fisher shrugged disappointedly. Hawk smiled slightly. He already knew Fisher hadn’t found anything; if she had, he’d have heard the sound of battle. Fisher wasn’t known for her diplomacy. Hawk started towards the stairs, and Fisher moved quickly in beside him.

  The bare wooden steps creaked and groaned beneath their feet, and Hawk scowled. If there was someone here, watching over the vampire, they had to know there was someone else in the house. You couldn’t put your foot down anywhere without some creaking board giving away your position. He hurried up the rest of the stairs and out onto the landing. He felt a little less vulnerable on the landing; there was more room to move, if it came to a fight. The floor was thick with dust and rat droppings, and the bare wooden walls were dull and scarred. Two doors led off from the landing, to their right. It was just as gloomy as the ground-floor hall, and Hawk thought fleetingly of his candle before deciding against it. If the sound hadn’t given them away, a light certainly would. He moved over to stand before the first door, and listened carefully. He couldn’t hear anything. Hawk smiled slightly. If this house did turn out to be empty, he was going to feel bloody ridiculous. He looked at Fisher, and gestured for her to guard his back. She nodded quickly. Hawk tried the door handle, and it turned easily in his grasp. He pushed the door slightly ajar, took a deep breath, and kicked the door in.

  He darted forward into the room, axe at the ready, and again there was no one there. Without looking around, Hawk knew that Fisher was looking at him knowingly.

  I said this was a wild goose chase, Hawk....

  He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He glared about him, taking in the darkened room. A sparse light seeped past the closed shutters to show him a wardrobe to his left and a bed to his right. A large wooden chest stood at the foot of the bare bed. Hawk eyed the chest suspiciously. It looked to be a good four feet long and three feet wide; quite large enough to hold a body. Hawk frowned. Like it or not, he was going to need some light to check the room out properly. He peered about him, and his gaze fell on an old oil lamp lying on the floor by the bed. He bent down, picked the lamp up and shook it gently. He could feel oil sloshing back and forth in the base of the lamp. Hawk worried his lower lip between his teeth. The house might appear deserted, but somebody had to have been here recently.... He took out flint and steel and lit the lamp. The sudden golden glow made the room seem smaller and less threatening.

  Hawk moved over to the chest and crouched down before it. There didn’t seem to be any lock or bolts. He glanced at Fisher, who took a firm hold on the wooden stake in her left hand and nodded for him to try the lid. He clutched his axe tightly, and then threw the lid open. Hawk let out his breath in a slow sigh of relief, and he and Fisher relaxed a little as they took in the pile of old bed linen that filled the chest. The cloth was flecked with a rather nasty-looking mould, and had obviously been left in the chest for ages, but Hawk rummaged gingerly through it anyway, just in case there might be something hidden under it. There wasn’t. Hawk wiped his hands thoroughly on his trousers.

  All this taking it slow and easy was getting on his nerves. He suddenly wanted very badly just to run amok and tear the place apart until he found the missing girl, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Firstly, if there was no one here the house’s owners would sue his arse in the courts, and secondly, if there was a vampire here he was bound to be well hidden, and nothing less than a careful, methodical search was going to find him.

  One room at a time, one thing at a time, by the book. Follow the procedures. And he and Fisher might just get out of this alive yet.

  He moved over to the bed and got down on his hands and knees to look underneath it. A big hairy spider darted out of the shadows towards him, and he fell backwards with a startled yelp. The spider quickly disappeared back into the shadows. Hawk quickly regained his balance and shot a dirty look at Fisher, who was trying hard not to laugh and only just making it. Hawk growled something under his breath, picked up the lamp from the floor and swept it back and forth before him. There was nothing under the bed but dust.

  Not in the chest, and not under the bed. That only left the wardrobe, though it seemed a bit obvious. Hawk clambered to his feet, put the lamp on the chest, and moved over to stand before the wardrobe. It was a big piece of furniture, almost seven feet tall and four feet wide. Wonder how they got it up the stairs? thought Hawk absently. He took a firm hold on the door handle, gestured for Fisher to stand ready, and then jerked open the door. Inside the wardrobe a teenage girl was hanging naked from a butcher’s hook. Her eyes were wide and staring, and she’d been dead for some time. Two jagged puncture wounds showed clearly on her throat, bright red against the white skin. The steel tip of the butcher’s hook protruded from her right shoulder, just above the collarbone. No blood had run from the wound, suggesting she was already dead when the hook went into her. Hawk swallowed hard and reached forward to gently touch the dead girl’s hand. The flesh was icy cold.

  “Damn,” he said quietly. “Oh, damn.”

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” said Fisher. “Councillor Trask’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” said Hawk. “It’s her.”

  “The vampire must have been thirsty. Or maybe just greedy. I doubt there’s a drop of blood left in her body.”

  “Look at her,” said Hawk harshly. “Sixteen years old, and left to hang in darkness like a side of beef. She was so pretty, so alive.... She didn’t deserve to die like this. No one deserves to die like this.”

  “Easy,” said Fisher softly. “Take it easy, love. We’ll get the bastard that did this. Now let’s get the girl down.”

  “What?” Hawk looked at Fisher confusedly.

  “We have to get her down, Hawk,” said Fisher. “She died from a vampire’s bite. If we leave her, she’ll rise again as one of the undead. We can spare her that, at least.”

  Hawk nodded slowly. “Yes. Of course.”

  Somehow, between them, they got the body off the hook and out of the wardrobe. They laid the dead girl out on the bed, and Hawk tried to close the staring eyes. They wouldn’t stay shut, and in the end Fisher put two coins on the eyes to hold the lids down.

  “I don’t even know her name,” said Hawk. “I only knew her as Trask’s daughter.”

  The scream caught him off guard, and he’d only just started to turn round when a heavy weight slammed into him from behind. He and his attacker fell sprawling on the floor, and the axe flew out of Hawk’s hand. He slammed his elbow back into his attacker’s ribs and pulled himself free. He scrambled away and went after his axe. The attacker lurched to his feet, and Fisher stepped forward to run him through with her sword. The man dodged aside at the last moment and grabbed Fisher’s extended arm. She groaned aloud as his fingers crushed her arm, grinding the muscles against the bone. Her sword fell from her numbed fingers. She clawed at his hand, and couldn’t move it. He was strong, impossibly strong, and she couldn’t tear herself free....

  He flung her away from him. She slammed against the far wall and slid dazedly to the floor. Hawk started forward, axe in hand, and then stopped dead as he finally saw who his attacker was.

  “Trask ...” Hawk gaped at the nondescript, middle-aged man standing grinning before him. The Councillor was little more than medium height and painfully thin, but his eyes burned in his gaunt face.

  “She was your daughter, you bastard!” said Hawk. “Your own daughter ...”

  “She will live forever,” said Trask, his voice horribly calm and reasonable. “So will I. My master has promised me this. My daughter was afraid at first; she didn’t understand. But she will. We wi
ll never grow old and ugly and die and lie forever in the cold earth. We will be strong and powerful and everyone will fear us. All I have to do is protect the master from fools like you.”

  He darted forward, and Hawk met him with his axe. He swung it double-handed with all his strength, and the wide metal blade punched clean through Trask’s ribs. The Councillor screamed, as much with rage as with pain, and staggered back against the bed. Hawk pulled his axe free and got ready to hit him again if necessary. Trask looked down at his ribs, and saw the blood that flowed from the gaping wound in his side. He dipped his fingers into the blood, lifted them to his mouth and licked them clean. Hawk lifted his axe and Trask went for his throat. Hawk fought for breath as Trask’s bony fingers closed around his throat and tightened. He tried to swing his axe, but he couldn’t use it at such close quarters. He dropped it, and grabbed Trask’s wrists, but the Councillor was too strong. Hawk’s gaze began to dim. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears.

  Fisher stepped in beside them and cut at Trask’s right arm with her sword. The gleaming blade sliced through the muscle, and the arm went limp. Hawk gathered the last of his strength and pushed Trask away from him. Trask lashed out at Fisher with his undamaged arm. She ducked under the blow and ran her sword through his heart with a single thrust. Trask stood very still, looking down at the gleaming steel blade protruding from his chest. Fisher jerked it out, and Trask collapsed, as though only the sword had been holding him up. He lay on his back on the floor, blood pooling around his body, and glared silently up at Hawk and Fisher. And then the light went out of his eyes, and his breathing stopped.

  Hawk leaned back against the wall and felt gingerly at his bruised throat. Fisher stirred Trask’s body with her boot, and when he didn’t react, knelt down beside him and felt cautiously for a pulse. There wasn’t one. Fisher nodded, satisfied, and got to her feet again.