Chapter Four

I



"Where are we going?" Connor asked Constance.

"You'll see," she answered.

The rain had stopped and the sun had set although the day had been so dark and gloomy that it was hard to tell the difference. They could have been the only human beings in the city. Occasionally a car would splash by, but otherwise the streets were empty and the storefronts they passed were shuttered or boarded up.

Pike took a run at a beer can lying ahead of them, then with barking laugh kicked it flying into a light post. It ricocheted off into a wall and back to the sidewalk ahead of them with several more bounces. Kyle ran after the can and kicked it back to Pike who laughingly kicked it into another wall across the street.

Slipping her hand into his, Constance stood close to Connor as they watched Pike and Kyle kick the can around until it slammed into a storm drain and disappeared.

Whooping, Kyle crowed, raising his arms in victory, "Score! Another one for the home team!"

"How are you feeling?" Constance asked Connor.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"You're hurting, aren't you?" she asked.

"A little," he admitted.

"How long has it been since you last eaten?"

"I dunno," he answered, not wanting to admit that the last thing he had was a bottle of pigs' blood.

"Don't worry," she said, "We'll get something to eat real soon."

"I don't want anything," he denied. The unnaturalness of his hunger disgusted him down to his very soul.

"Nobody's going to be out in this weather," Chelsea groused.

"We could always try near the mission," Castor suggested, "they don't have a lot of beds and somebody's always hangin' around there lookin' for a handout from the do-gooders."

"No good," Chelsea said, "those missionaries have taken to handing out crosses. Everybody's wearing a cross out there. Yuck!" she spat out.

"How about dockside?" suggested Pollux, "Maybe we can catch some sailor or foreigner."

"Sounds good," said Kyle, as he and Pike caught up with them.

Pike frowned at Connor, noticing Constance's hand in his, "Who do you think you are?" he demanded angrily. "She's my girl."

Constance snorted, "I've never been your girl."

"Well, you sure acted like it," Pike growled.

"That's because I didn't have anything better to do at the time," she replied heatedly, pushing past Pike.

"How about me and him mix it up some. Maybe that'll show you who's the man around here."

Constance regarded Connor with a knowing look. "Forget it. Besides we gotta stick together, you know. We can't get to fighting each other. Okay?"

Pike looked he was going to say something, then changed his mind, "Okay, for now," he finally said.

They continued to walk the streets for another hour with no luck until they heard the slap of waves against wood. They had reached the end of the land. In the darkness, it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the lake began. Several ships laid moored at the docks. In a few of them lights glowed yellow in the damp air. Most though were dark hulks against the starless sky.

"Oughta find some luck here," Castor said hopefully.

"I hope so," Pollux answered plaintively as he affectionately brushed against his lover, "I'm hungry."

"We're all hungry," Pike growled at him. "Now just shut up," he added peevishly.

Loud laughter caught their attention. "Sounds like it came from around the corner," Chelsea said, leading away.

Ahead of them sandwiched between the blank windows of dark stores was a bar from which loud music and raucous laughter exploded every time the door was opened. Overhead a neon sign occasionally sputtered to life while in one small flyspecked window shone a yellow neon beer sign.

A pair of men lurched drunkenly out the door, slamming it loudly behind them.

"Food," Pike hissed.

Constance grabbed his arm. "No. Not them. No more than one at a time."

"Damn it. I'm sick and tired of your god damn rules. There's seven of us now. One just ain't going to cut it anymore. I'm god damn tired of sharing one," Pike growled at her.

"Only one," she insisted. "It won't be long now. Soon you can have as many as you want."

Pike angrily pulled from her grasp. "I go alone or you can come with. I don't give a damn." He ran after the lurching men.

"Pike!" Constance yelled after him.

"Pike's right," Chelsea said, looking hungrily after Pike, "One isn't enough." She ran to catch up with Pike. Kyle ran after her. After a few moments of indecision, Castor and Pollux followed at a run.

"Crap!" Constance screamed. "The goddamn freaking idiots! C'mon," she yelled at Connor.

"Idiots, idiots, idiots!" Constance muttered repeatedly under her breath as they ran to catch up with the others.

They found the rest of the gang in an alley, cornering the two drunks. However, the men no longer acted drunk. "Hold it!" demanded the taller of the two as he pulled out a gun and a shield, "Police! You're under arrest."

Pike laughed derisively, "Police. Big freakin' deal." He rounded on the man, slamming the shield out of his hand.

The gun went off, missing Pike, hitting Chelsea instead. Chelsea fell to the ground with an angry screech. To Connor's surprise, she got to her feet, uninjured.

"That freakin' hurts," she screamed at the stunned police officer. He fired again, twice more hitting her. She rose to her feet again. "I said that freakin' hurts," she screamed at him, grabbing the gun out of his hands. Suddenly her face transformed into the demonic appearance of a vampire. The man's screams were drowned in her growls as she bit into his throat.

Feeling shocked and betrayed, Connor turned on Constance, "You're all vampires," he yelled at her.

Behind him he could hear the other officer scream repeatedly into a radio above Pike's taunting laughter, "Officer down! Officer down! Officer down!"

"Yeah, and so are you," she shot back to him.

"No, I'm not," he insisted heatedly. All the while he felt the blood hunger sing in his head.

"Yes, you are. You just can't admit yet," she countered. "You can feel it. You want to feed just like the rest of us. Admit it!"

"No! I have a soul," he shot back to her. "I'll never be like you. You're all unnatural monsters."

"Monsters. Don't you know yet that we're all monsters? Having a soul doesn't stop somebody from being a monster. Hell, the world's filled with monsters with souls. We're no worst than any other of them. Maybe we're even better. We only want blood. We only want to survive. Who cares if the world's short another person or two?"



Connor looked around at the others. Pike had finished feeding and was watching with a satiated grin as Castor and Pollux took turns feeding on their victim.

"Constance, you want some?" Chelsea asked, holding her man with his head bent back, exposing his naked throat. "Kyle and me's done."

"Yeah," Constance said, shooting a challenging look at as her face turned vampiric. "So what you gonna do? Stake me or feed?" she challenged.

She grabbed the man and began to feed. Then she looked at Connor, "You're hungry. You can feel it in your belly. You know this is what you are. Don't fight it. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Join me. Be a part of us."

Connor shuddered. He remembered Holtz's frenzied ranting during the entire time they were in Quor-toth. He remembered the man damning Angel and all vampires with every breath he took. Holtz had dedicated his life to making the boy a master vampire hunter and the boy had learned his lessons well. He had to. Every day, every moment in that evil place was struggle to survive.

Then he learned that he had been ripped from his true home, and brought to Quor-toth by Holtz, a place no child should ever have to experience. The man he had thought his father had turned out to be a monster and the man he had thought a monster was his true father. Now he was discovering that he himself was all that he had been raised to loathe.

"What'll it be, Connor?" Constance pressed. Her lips gleamed redly with her helpless victim's blood.

Connor wanted to turn away. He wanted to turn it all back. He wished he had never been born.

"Connor." Not a question. A demand.

He was hurting so badly. The cramps in his belly were returning with more force than they ever had been before. He could smell the blood. He could hear Castor and Pollux sucking the life of the man they feasted upon. He could hear the ragged breathing of the man in Constance's arms. One could almost think that it was a lover's embrace. Except for the blood. The red, warm blood. Living, human blood. Blood that flowed with every heartbeat.

Connor trembled. He couldn't turn away even though he desperately wanted to. His own blood pounded in his ears. His heart slammed against his chest as the hunger made a red mist before his eyes. He could think of nothing else but the blood and his hunger.

Then he could taste it. He found himself beside Constance, feeding as she watched him with approval in her yellow, feral vampire eyes. "Feed, Connor, feed and know what it is be the hunter of men," she whispered seductively.

He rose from his feeding, and looked into the eyes of his victim. No fear, no panic. There was only the resigned acceptance of death. He could feel the man's heart slow. There was little blood left to keep it beating.

"Hold it!" demanded an authoritative voice.

Connor felt something sharp bite into his arm. Surprised he dropped the man. He growled at the figures standing at the mouth of the alleyway. One man was tall, dressed in a dark overcoat and hat. The other, much shorter, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform, crouched at the ready beside the tall man. Connor glanced down to see a green-stripped dart imbedded in his arm. He swept it away, annoyed at its stinging pain.

"Damn," he heard Constance curse, "It's the Green Hornet."

"Good," Pike answered, "I've always wanted to take him on." Pike charged at the Green Hornet.

Yowling like a catamount, Kato met his charge low, his hand a knife edge into his belly. Pike folded in double. A chop to his neck sent him to the ground in a cursing heap. The Green Hornet rushed in from behind Kato, meeting Kyle in mid-leap, slamming the butt of the Hornet sting against his head. Kyle landed on his feet, more wary of the masked man. He circled the Green Hornet waiting for an opening.

Chelsea jumped the Green Hornet, wrapping her arms around his neck in a choke hold, angling for his jugular. "Dinnertime," she hissed into his ear.

"I'm gonna drain you, you freakin' bastard," Pike screamed angrily as he got to his feet. As a vampire, he was far stronger than Kato, but draining helpless bums had given him no fighting skills. Grabbing up a discarded piece of two-by-four, he swung it at Kato. A blur in the dark alleyway, Kato's hands flew, shredding the wood into kindling. A high kick sent Pike flying across the alleyway into Castor and Pollux who huddled together in panic. Those two were lovers, not fighters.

The Green Hornet bent, throwing Chelsea to the ground. Kyle charged him, trying to drag him to the ground. The Green Hornet threw a fist into his stomach and an uppercut sent him skidding alongside Chelsea.

"No, Connor," Constance said sharply as she grabbed his arm, stopping him from joining the fight. "Not yet."

"But . . . " Connor protested.

"Listen," she replied.

Above the sounds of battle he could hear the thin wail of police sirens.

"They're going to come in shooting. We can't be killed by bullets, but you can," Constance explained. "Kyle, Chelsea. Let's split," she ordered. Castor and Pollux had already disappeared. "Pike!" she called, "Let's get the Hell out of here!" she ordered.

"Like Hell," he called back, charging again for Kato.

Kato held a broken piece of the two-by-four in front of him to break Pike's charge. Pike was moving too fast. He found himself impaled on the impromptu stake.

He looked into the startled oriental's black eyes, as surprised he was. "Damn," Pike said as he turned to dust.



The police sirens were becoming earsplitting.

Kato turned to the Green Hornet. "He turned to dust," he said in shock. "What are we dealing with?" he asked.

"I don't know," the Green Hornet replied as he bent down to touch the dust that had been Pike.

"Should we follow them?" Kato asked.

The Green Hornet shook his head. "The police are getting too close. Besides, do you really want to?"

Kato sighed. "Not really," he admitted reluctantly.

"Same here," the Green Hornet said in agreement. "At least not until we know what we're up against."

Kato quickly ran for the Black Beauty. It was time to leave. It was almost past the time to leave. The Green Hornet, still not believing what he had seen turned to follow, then a movement caught his eye. A stray flash of light, perhaps a trick of reflection from the lights of the nearing police cars briefly illuminated a man hidden in the shadows near the mouth of the alley. For a moment their eyes locked.

The man was dressed a long black coat. The coat, unbuttoned, showed him to be slender and tall. His brown hair was slightly spiked. His eyes, also brown, met the Green Hornet's pale green. They showed a depth of grief that the masked man had never known was possible. Then the man was gone, disappearing in the shadows.

Barely in time the Green Hornet and Kato reached the Black Beauty. Police cars screeched to a halt near the alley as the Black Beauty peeled away from the curb. A police officer exploded out of his car, firing at the big car as it swept by. The bullets popped against its bullet proof hide harmlessly. A pair of oncoming police cars swerved out of its way. One of them u-turned with protesting tires in the narrow street, bumping half on and half off the sidewalk, narrowly missing a light pole.

The police band radio in the Black Beauty was going wild with reports from units coming in from all corners of the city.

Kato risked a glance back at the pursuing police car. "We got to lose them, boss," he said tightly.

Ahead of them a train was entering a crossing. The crossing guard was down and the crossing lights were flashing wildly. The crossing's clanging was drowned out by the siren of the police car behind them.

"Think you can make it?" the Green Hornet challenged.

"No problem," Kato answered confidently. He pressed on the gas pedal, sending it down to the floorboards. The Black Beauty roared ahead. It slammed into and through the cross guard. For a moment the world was nothing a whirlwind of sirens, train claxons, and flashing lights.

Then there was silence. The train was behind them, leading a long line of cars to its destination. Somewhere on the other side a pair of police officers were cursing their frustration.

At a more sedate pace the Black Beauty wound its way through the darkest and emptiest streets until it found its way home.