Dark Lover(36)

Vengeance was one hell of a roommate.



Mr. X eyed the two students sparring with each other. They were well matched in size, both eighteen years old and built strong, but he knew which one was going to win.

Sure enough, a side kick came out fast and hard, putting the receiver on his back.

Mr. X called an end to the match and said nothing more as the victor reached out and helped the loser struggle to his feet. The show of courtesy was irritating, and he felt like punishing them both.

The first code of the society was clear: That which you put on the ground, you kicked until it ceased to move. It was just that simple.

Still, this was class, not the real world. And the parents who were letting their sons dabble in violence would have had something to say if their precious children came home fit to be buried.

As the two students bowed to him, the loser's face was brilliant red, and not just from exertion. Mr. X let the class stare, knowing that shame and embarrassment were important parts of the corrective process.

He nodded at the victor.

"Fine job. Next time you bring him down faster though.

right? He turned to the loser. He passed his eyes from the guy's head to his feet, noting the heaving breaths, the tremble in the legs. "You know where to go."

The loser blinked rapidly as he walked over to the glass wall that looked out to the lobby. As required, he stood facing the clear panels, head up high so everyone who entered the building could see his face. If he brushed the tears off his cheeks, he would have to repeat the discipline during the next session.

Mr. X separated the class and began to put them through their exercises. He watched them, correcting stances and arm positions, but his mind was on other things.

Last night had been less than perfect. Far less.

Back home, his police scanner had informed him when the prostitute's body had been found sometime after three A.M. There had been no mention of the vampire. Perhaps the lessers had taken the civilian away to toy with him.

It was a shame things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped, and he wanted to get back out into the field. Using a newly slain human female as bait was going to work fine. But the tranquilizer darts needed to be calibrated better. He'd started with a relatively low dose, concerned about killing the civilian before he could work him over. Clearly the strength of the drug needed to be increased.

Tonight was a bust, though.

Mr. X eyed the loser.

This evening was all about recruiting. The ranks needed to be filled out a little following the disintegration of that new recruit two nights ago.

Back centuries ago, when there were many more vampires, the society had had hundreds of members, spread far and wide over the European continent as well as in the fledgling settlements in North America. Now that the vampire population had dwindled, however, so had the ranks of the society. It was a matter of practicality. A bored, inactive lesser was a bad thing. Chosen specifically for their capacity for violence, their murderous impulses couldn't be put on ice just because there weren't enough targets to go around. Quite a number of them had had to be put down for killing other lessers in competition for superiority in the ranks, an aggres-sive response more likely to occur if there was too little work. Or just as bad, they'd started taking out humans for sport.

The former was a disgrace and an inconvenience. The latter was unacceptable. It wasn't that the Omega was concerned with human fatalities. Quite the contrary. But using discretion, moving in the shadows, killing swiftly and returning to the darkness, these were the tenets of slayers. Human attention was bad news, and nothing got the Homo sapiens stirred up more than a bunch of dead people.

Which was another reason why new recruits were tricky. They tended to have more hatred than focus. Seasoning was critical so that the secret nature of the aeons-old war between vampires and the society could be preserved.

Still, their ranks needed to be filled.

He eyed the loser and smiled, looking forward to the evening.

Shortly before seven o'clock, Mr. X drove out to the suburbs, easily locating 3461 Pillar Street. He put the Hummer in park and waited, passing the time by memorizing the split-level's details. It was typical Middle America. Twenty-four hundred square feet, sitting smack-dab in the center of a tiny lot with one big tree. Neighbors were close enough to be able to read the writing on the kids' cereal boxes in the morning and the labels on the adults' domestic beer cans at night.

Happy, clean living. At least from the outside.

The screen door swung open, and the loser from this afternoon's class bounded out as if he were getting free of a sinking ship. Mom followed, lingering on the front step and regarding the SUV in front of her house as though it were a bomb ready to go off.

Mr. X put down the window and waved. She returned the greeting after a moment.