Shadow of a Doubt Read online

  “People see the good in you, John. They see the evil too, don’t get me wrong on that. Whether you realize it or not, you inspire those around you.”

  “I do? If I have good and evil, how do I inspire them?” I asked, genuinely intrigued at an angel’s answer on the matter.

  “You fight your inner demon relentlessly. Did you know that you are the first supernatural to resist his predatory nature and use his abilities for the betterment of mankind?”

  “What? That can’t be true,” I said, disbelieving. “What about Depweg? Or, heck, even Locke, for Lilith’s sake.”

  “Your friends came after you, so you are still the first. Besides, ask him what he was like before meeting you, John.” Val stopped and stared into my eyes then, signaling an entire encyclopedia of information with just a glance. “The reason he is who he is today is because he found you when he did. It stands to reason that if you had come across him even one day prior, you would have killed him without a second thought. That situation with the Jewish boy and the werewolf hunter really shook things up for him. And if I were to be honest with you, I don’t think his sanity would have held if you hadn’t stumbled upon him.”

  The back of my neck tingled, and I could feel the hairs stand on end as I thought of how close I had been to never knowing my best friend.

  Val noticed as I shuddered at the thought and reassured me by saying, “Everything happens for a reason, John. Remember that.”

  I didn’t know what to say as we made our way back through the room of portals and past the crates. I glanced at the one I had opened, feeling the significance of its contents. Though, to be fair, right now everything felt significant to me. I was dealing with a lot of emotions, thoughts, and self-doubt that I could do this.

  After we were back in the bar, I poured myself a much-needed shot all the way to the brim of the glass. I called out, “Skol,” to the empty bar before downing the drink. I was going to need all the confidence I could muster.

  12

  It took almost an entire week to lure out the Hunter—Ludvig Mansson. All I needed was a consistent trail of decimated bodies that looked as if they had been torn apart by enormous dogs. It was kind of fun to artfully manifest bloodwolves from my hands to eat the flesh of evil men, of whom apparently there was a surplus. By the same token, I took note that there was hardly a supe to be found in the region, which resulted in an excess of fair game for me. It was morbidly akin to hunting wolves completely out of an area, resulting in deer overpopulation. The world needed a checks and balances system or the scales would tip.

  After the flesh was consumed by my bloodwolves, I would absorb the blood from the meat while passing the muscle, bone, and skin to the ground. So as not to be suspicious, I would then bag all of the leftover meat, leaving only the bones, and take the flesh to one of the many feeding grounds. There was plenty of wildlife on the outskirts of Houston that wouldn’t waste a free meal. I smiled, then, in remembrance of the alligator pets I once had many years ago. After I had been tracked down due to my predictable behavior, I had decided it was best to spread the love when I needed to dispose of my edible evidence.

  Having set the trap, my waiting paid off in the form of an impressively large man wearing a black leather trench coat—how cliché. At least my coat had been taken off a Lilith-damned Nazi officer during the war of duba-duba-aye-aye. That shit’s unique, unlike this Van Helsing wannabe. He was a few hundred yards away through the thin cover of the trees, walking toward a clearing. My eyes shifted to full predatory red once it was clear that my bait had been taken. I crouched lower on the tree branch, about fifteen feet off the ground, watching and waiting for my time to strike.

  A wide-brimmed black leather hat sat upon a head whose face was covered with red-lens tactical goggles and some sort of breathing apparatus. All his clothing was black, including his gloves which had carbon fiber knuckles. An assortment of items decorated his utility belt, including three skinny vials next to the belt clasp. A sword hilt poked out the top of his coat while he brandished an odd-looking short barrel rifle. It resembled an elephant gun with the muzzle expanding outward near the end of its length.

  I watched as he walked a little too confidently through the woods where my trap had been set. My senses were on high alert. Everyone had warned me that this guy was no mere mortal. He had skill and the wherewithal to employ dangerous toys for any and all occasions. My vision tunneled on my target, prepared for any attack should he notice me before I pounced. He was a fairly good distance from me, lending me some assurance that he wouldn’t be able to strike from that far, even with his firearm.

  The Hunter’s head was on a swivel as he methodically scanned his surroundings, ready for any supe to attack.

  I didn’t think, however, that he was prepared for a vampire as old and strong as I was. Considering that he couldn’t have possibly hunted any of my kind—and most myths were just that, myths—I was confident that—

  “He’s here!” a younger voice called out from behind the tree I was crouched in. I shot to my feet, turning around in surprise as I did, and was greeted by a blast from what resembled a shotgun. A slug smashed into my iron-infused body armor, hurling me out of the tree where I slammed into the ground, tumbling for several feet. I was going to kiss Depweg for giving me the chest plates and carrier vest once I rescued him.

  “Never go hunting without it,” I groaned to myself as I drunkenly got to my hands and knees. I felt my sternum beginning to heal with audible pops. Looking down at my chest, my fingers examined the silver slug that was imbedded in the armor. I was both impressed and terrified that the shot had been near perfect center mass.

  Gritting my teeth in indignant rage, I located the attacker, who had racked another round into the weapon and was leveling it in my direction. I hesitated for the briefest of moments as I noticed it was just a kid, probably not even sixteen years old.

  My attacker did not hesitate as I did and squeezed off another round in my direction. Pushing off with my hands and feet, I leaped into the air and spun while bringing my arms in close to my torso. While performing my acrobatics in midair, I felt a tug on my coat, along with a ripping sound. As I landed, I quickly risked a glance at my poor trench and noticed a brand-new hole. Kid or not, I had to stop this threat.

  I shifted my weight, getting ready to blur in a big circle to flank my attacker, when a bola wrapped around my torso from behind. My arms were pinned to my sides, throwing off my balance, as I began to run.

  Shit! They set a trap for me!

  The irony is not lost on me, Baleius said. Now focus. What is this material around our chest made of?

  I looked down and noticed it was a simple steel rope connecting the metal ends, and puffed out my chest while extending my arms as I ran. The bola snapped, and I barked in laughter at my win, right before smacking headfirst into a tree.

  You are truly embarrassing, Baleius sighed.

  Dude, shut up. I got this, I exploded at him as I quickly stood up, embarrassment flushing my cheeks.

  An explosion from a firearm sounded as a net made of silver smacked into my back, pinning me against the tree I had just made friends with, chest first.

  “Why…the fuck…can’t I…break silver or iron!” I screamed through a clenched jaw as I pushed against the tree.

  Quick footsteps crunched the leaves covering the ground behind me, growing closer. From the sound, I anticipated my attacker was around thirty paces away and closing.

  How the hell did he get so close, so fast? I asked Baleius.

  I smell magic about him.

  He’s a fucking supe?

  I don’t know, but we can worry about that later. Stop trying to break the chains that bind.

  How else do you expect me to get out of this? A thought struck me then, and I positioned my hand in front of my chest. I punched through the wood with ease and began clawing at the tree, tearing it to shreds as if it were made of popsicle sticks. Once enough of it had been turned into toothpicks,
the net began to loosen, allowing enough slack for me to bend slightly at my knees and jump up. I took the rest of the tree with me as I leaped through its corpse, clearing my silver prison.

  While in midair, I grabbed the tree, which was around three feet thick at its circumference, and turned my body to face the attacker that had flanked me.

  Ludvig the Hunter had stopped advancing and stood with his arms and legs out to either side, ready to react to whatever I was about to do.

  Using my preternatural strength, I threw the tree like a bulky spear toward the Hunter, who took me by surprise by standing his ground.

  As the massive spear sailed toward him, Ludvig took one step forward until the left side of his body was the only thing facing the tree, and pulled a sleek sword out of a scabbard on his back. The sword ran the full length of his spine and hummed with magic. I could see runes etched into the blade that reflected the moonlight. Ludvig swiped upward just before the tree hit him. There was a silver arc of light that extended from his swipe, and the tree split in two. The remains sailed past the Hunter on either side of his body, sending up an explosion of dirt as they smashed and then slid on the ground.

  Holy…shit…that was cool, I admired inwardly.

  While still in midair, I willed and then threw out a bloodspear attached to me by a bloodrope. I had anticipated his ability to block, so I pulled the spear back at the last second as Ludvig swung his enchanted weapon. As he did, he left himself open, and I sent another spear out with my other hand toward his exposed side. The Hunter didn’t even flinch in surprise as the needle tip of the bloodspear approached his body. Instead, he moved at a speed that even I had trouble tracking and cut my weapon with ease. The loss of energy stunned me, but I hadn’t thrown a ton of energy into the attack just in case he had holy or enchanted armor on.

  I recovered as I hit the ground just in time to pull a Neo as a silver arc sailed toward me. I bent at my knees and landed on my back with a thud, which was a more realistic homage to the movie—I could have stayed bent at my knees and basically floated in midair, but just didn’t want to.

  The arc passed over my body, clipping a handful of my hair that was trailing above me as I fell. I shot my legs into the air with preternatural strength and flew upward feetfirst like a missile. As I soared, my incredibly fast attacker pulled a stick from inside his Van Helsing duster and pointed it at me. An arc of lightning forked out in the blink of an eye and wrapped around me like a python about to squeeze the life out of its prey.

  “The fuck?” was all I could manage before the arcs started tightening around me. Before they could start tickling my nerves, I pulled the silver kukri from the sheath on my back and placed the holy metal into the mass of the lightning.

  There was a deafening pop as the spell broke, leaving me unsinged as I flew through the air toward my surprisingly skilled opponent. With my free hand, I willed a bloodrapier—the favorite weapon of my maker—and brought it to bear as I landed a few paces in front of Ludvig. I lunged with the tip of the sword aimed at his throat, still unsure if he had body armor, and he parried reflexively. I anticipated this and turned my body to swipe at his sword arm with the silver kukri. He dodged the attack by pivoting his entire body, bringing the magic stick up as he turned. The tip was glowing white as a smaller arc of lightning shot out and licked my knife-wielding hand. The muscles in my forearm contracted and released a hundred times within the span of a second, forcing me to lose my grip on the weapon, which dropped to the thick foliage of the ground.

  As he disarmed my knife hand, I pivoted my body and lashed out at his lead leg. My bloodrapier struck home and cut a small gash into his thigh.

  He responded by sending a gale of frozen wind out of his wand that blew my head as if I were trying to give a nuclear-powered leaf blower a blow job. My eyes froze in an instant, blinding me. My cheeks billowed out before freezing as well, leaving me with a face that screamed fierce…probably.

  I stumbled backward, waving my hands frantically in front of me. Ludvig began his approach, positioning his silver-infused sword for the final strike. As he lunged, I sidestepped and stabbed him through the bicep of his sword arm, using my preternatural sight to aim at his heat signature. He dropped the weapon, but not before punching me in the face with his wand hand. It hurt. Like it actually hurt me. I’ve been hit by countless foes—which admitting now feels a bit odd; doesn’t exactly make me sound like a pleasant fellow—and very few could rock me like Ludvig just did.

  Once again, my ample backside found the dirt as my brain struggled to reboot. My bloodsword retracted into my body on automatic reflex as I rolled onto my back, my skull hitting something hard on the ground. Whatever was under my head hummed with power.

  I brought my hand up to my skull in a show of stunned confusion and grabbed the hilt of the silver kukri. I opened my freshly thawed eyes and looked at Ludvig. Though his face was hidden by his tactical goggles and breathing apparatus, I could tell he was pissed. His left hand, still holding the wand, grabbed his bicep, where blood flowed freely. I smiled and reached out with my will to grab hold of his oozing life energy, and pulled. The Hunter’s blood began flying toward me like a crimson snake slithering to its new master. I began to stand as his powerful blood became mine, leaving him stunned as more and more poured from his arm like an opening nozzle. Lilith, it was unbelievably potent.

  As I reached full height, I drew in a breath and slashed my prey’s other arm with the kukri. As new blood poured from the gash in his forearm, the wand slipped from his weakening grasp and toppled to the ground.

  Behind us! Baleius cried out, pulling me from my blood bliss. Dropping the focus on Ludvig’s blood, I made a one-eighty turn and was met with a whip infused with silver. How the hell did these guys afford so much of that holy metal?

  The whip roped around my throat, and I was tugged, yet again, to the freaking ground, but face-first this time. I felt like John Wick in the third movie where he keeps getting kicked through glass displays over and over and over again…and over. As I fell toward the ground, I produced my own bloodwhip in ironic contrast to the holy metal, and lashed out at the kid. My own rope found its target, wrapping around his tender neck. I leaped back up to my feet as the fledgling supernatural hunter gasped in fear as I willed spikes to begin forming along my manifestation. As I did, I cut his whip with a quick swipe of my razor-sharp kukri, letting the pieces fall to the ground.

  A sheet of white-hot pain exploded down my arm as an enchanted sword cut through my bloodwhip, stunning me as if I had grabbed an electric fence powered by a fission reactor. I had thrown more energy into the manifestation than I had originally meant to, not fearing the chance of hitting enchanted or warded armor from the kid’s exposed neck.

  As every muscle tensed in nerve-shattering pain, I began falling backward to the ground, as if I were a plank of wood. Ludvig, who was standing in front of me and a step to the side, grabbed my coat and pulled me close to his covered face. In a thick, Swedish accent, the Hunter said to me, “What de hell are you?”

  “Ha, Predator,” I said weakly in reference to his unintentional movie quote.

  It didn’t take long to regain my faculties, but I decided it was best to play possum for a moment. Maybe I could get a few answers.

  “Magni, to me,” Ludvig called out without taking his face from mine.

  Foliage crunched underfoot as the teen approached. I lazily shifted my gaze from the huge man holding me to look at the smaller…I guess he was a trainee? My blood manifestation had lost cohesion and had basically melted all around the kid’s neck and shoulders, giving him a crimson ascot.

  I got a clear view of the boy then; red spots of acne sprinkled sporadically over his pale face. He had a small nose under eyes that bulged when they saw my face. He was familiar somehow.

  “It-it’s him!” Magni cried out, pointing a shaking finger at me.

  “Who? De vampyr?” Ludvig asked. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ll never forget his ev
il face. That monster killed my mom.”

  I straightened then, figuring out where I knew him from. “The boy,” I mouthed in disbelief. I put my hand on Ludvig’s chest without thinking about the action and shoved him away with ease, as if bating away a fly. He flew for several yards before hitting the ground, tumbling. From the corner of my vision, I was aware that he had recovered with unbelievable reflexes, but I didn’t care.

  “I-I’m sorry!” I stammered, tears brimming in my eyes as my mouth gaped open. I had thought about this moment countless times. “I didn’t mean to!”

  Magni—the boy I had turned into an orphan during a blood rage—looked at me and said, “I don’t give a fuck what you meant to do, monster. YOU KILLED MY MOM!”

  My world spun as he spoke; the weight of his words was more powerful than any weapon imaginable. I collapsed to my knees, dropping my head to my chest in shame as Magni unslung and brought the shotgun up, aiming at my vulnerable head.

  “Wait!” Ludvig called out, running to stand between the barrel of the shotgun and my head. “You can’t kill him.” I lifted my eyes toward him in wonderment, my head still too heavy to raise.

  Tears spilled freely from Magni’s eyes as he snarled at his master, “Why the hell not, old man.” Hot blood bloomed under his pale face, painting it a rage-red.

  “Because you’ll cause Ragnarök,” Ludvig the Hunter said calmly, weathering the storm of his student.

  “I don’t care!” Magni shrieked in teenage defiance. “He killed her! HE-KILLED-HER!” His voice trailed off into sobs, letting the shotgun barrel fall to the forest floor.

  “My mom was killed in front of me, too,” I shared with a trembling bottom lip. “I-I have no excuse to give you, Magni. I-I didn’t even know your name. Da told me you were being taken care of, but wouldn’t tell me anything else.” I found strength in the chance to explain and stood up, taking a step forward. This prompted Ludvig to turn and place a hand on my chest in a blatant warning to keep my distance, not only for Magni’s sake, but my own, too. “I’ve thought about that night, so much.” I began sobbing then. “I-I wanted to reach out, but Da wouldn’t let me. He-he knew I’d just make things worse. I deserve your hatred!”