She deliberately strode out onto the floor, the crowd in the center isle parting to give her room. Even if they didn’t know her they knew her kind and better than to block her progress. The band was thumping, a great swing ensemble in zoot suits making the dance floor rock. She tuned out the music and could hear someone matching her pacing footsteps from behind. She made an abrupt right turn in front of the band, her hyped-up senses grinding the scene down into slow motion.

A middle-aged man in a tux was in front of her. She stopped short, reached up over her shoulder, and pulled her sword out of its scabbard. The man in front of her dropped his drink, letting it slide blankly out of his hand to crash to the concrete floor below. She held the sword up to him long enough to let her pursuer get close to her, then turned her hands on the grip and quickly slipped it backwards across her thigh. The footsteps stopped suddenly, but she did not feel the pressure of contact. Whoever this person was they were standing crotch close to the tip of a folded steel Japanese sword. Whoever this person was had reflexes to match her own – a mortal would not have seen it coming.

She flipped the silver-coated blade back up over her shoulder and let it slide with practiced hand back down into its scabbard. Stepping backwards she saw the man who had been following her, paused in misstep, the knife already out in his hand. He was just stuffing it back into its leather holster when she pushed him between the shoulder blades.

“Next time don’t be so obvious!”

“Next time I won’t be.”

He couldn’t have been hunting her, this much was clear. He had the mark of an experienced Stalker, yet he had made himself known to her with all the subtlety of a seventeen-year-old boy in heat. He was stocky, shorter than she was, with shaggy blond hair down onto his collar. He had several days worth of beard over a pockmarked face and his eyes glanced sideways at her through large amber glasses. His natural leather jacket and hat were weather-beaten and he still had his gloves on. His jeans and heavy work boots completed the picture. Whoever he was, he didn’t belong.

An ordinary vampire would have killed him on the spot, but Tallh-Ahn-Ri was no ordinary vampire. She was known as Vampire by Half, brought partway to Creation by her Master and then abandoned. By the time she was able to comprehend the true nature of what she had become and realized the true cost of what she had given up it was too late – she could not go back. Close enough to the vampire world to see through its mystique, human enough to avoid its entrapments, she had spent centuries living in-between Darkness and Light. Trapped by both, she was unable to go fully over to either side.

“There.” She pointed to a table next to the wall. It wasn’t a good table, but it afforded a view of all the comings and going in this part of the club. He followed her over as she shooed away the wannabes from their chairs. One look at two Stalkers and the small party of young people scrambled up out of the seats.

“Have a drink,” she told him, waving a waitress over.

“I never drink before.”

“He knows that. Have a drink.”

Her companion ordered a whiskey neat. Tallah knew the waitress and pulled her down to ask about the feeding room. In a few moments she returned with a tray and the news that the feeding room was available.

She left the man at the table and followed the waitress back to a private room where two huge men stood guard at the door. They looked her up and down and then nodded her in. She was a known customer and they knew she’d behave herself. Anyone who didn’t ended up in the back alley with their jaw broken or their throat slit. She pulled a coin out of her pocket for the attendant, who turned it over in his hand and then slid it into the cash box. She was approved.

There were several young people lounging in the back. Tallah knew some of them from past visits. She had even been one of them in her youth, before her transformation.

An older girl she knew well stood up and walked over to her. She was in her late twenties, with dark brown hair and black lipstick. She wore a leather vest over a white T-shirt, cutoff shorts, and Doc Martins. “Hey.”

Tallah slipped her hand around the back of the girl’s neck and sniffed her. A rich mix of hormones, sweat, and fragrance wafted up into her hypersensitive nostrils. It was enough to tell her that this girl was fertile, healthy, and very, very rich. They went off to a side alcove where there was a bench, a wash basin, and a curtain. In another time they might have been trading sex, but trading blood was more in demand in this world, and much, much more profitable.

The attendant followed them in. Tallah straddled the bench and the girl sat opposite, sliding her bare legs around Tallah’s hips. They kissed as the attendant, who knew Tallah’s preferences, washed the girl’s arm. This room was at the heart of many of the clubs. This was a safe place where a real vampire could obtain clean blood without the risk of being ambushed or having a silver dagger shoved into their backs. The young men and women who worked the rooms got more money then they could earn at a day job and the sexual rush that came with being bitten. It was the attendant’s job to see that everyone was clean and behaved themselves. Any rough handling here earned you banishment from every club in town.

The attendant stepped out and drew the privacy curtain. Tallah’s teeth had emerged and she drew away from the young woman’s lips to keep from cutting her mouth. The girl was breathing heavily, her blood pumping, skin warm. She offered up her arm and Tallah bit into it carefully, trying not to tear the flesh any more than she had to. The girl shuddered and arched her back. She closed her eyes as the warm flow entered her mouth. She didn’t need to feed often, most vampires didn’t, but she needed all her energies for the night’s work ahead.

They stayed together in this embrace for a long time. After three centuries Tallah had learned patience. She didn’t need to chew or worry the flesh; the natural anti-coagulant in her saliva kept the blood flowing at a steady rate. Her teeth receded before she was done but she stayed, letting it flow in at it’s own pace, the girl resting her head on Tallah’s shoulder. When she was done the attendant came back in and applied a heavy bandage to the girl’s arm while Tallah slipped a gold coin into her pocket. The attendant didn’t need to wipe her face. Tallah wasn’t a messy eater.

As she made her way back out onto the floor she saw that her quarry had already set up presence at the front table. John Quinn was handsome, powerful, and a vampire. Not of long ancestral line or of foreign origin, but a recent Colonial convert. He had volunteered for Transformation to enjoy his life of earthly luxury far beyond his intended time. Quickly accustomed to near-omnipotent excess, he and his followers had become the scourge of the young people filling the clubs. Too many young girls had stepped into his long car and never come back. John Quinn lived as if he had no one to answer to. John Quinn was wrong.

Tallah sat down next to the other hunter and slouched backwards, letting her boots stretch out in front of her. “Don’t get anxious.” She gestured to the waitress. “He’ll be here most of the night.”

Her companion nodded, tilted his hat down, and settled in for the long wait. Some of Quinn’s people turned to stare at them, open, menacing looks. He ignored the commotion, no one challenged him indoors where he was protected. They got bored with trying to glare the Stalkers to death and turned around. Several girls from the crowd approached the table, young, pretty, and dressed in the smutty gothic style that said they were looking for trouble. He selected three to sit at the table.

A young man turned to glance back at Tallah and her companion, who had settled into a game of Taipei. Looking up over the tops of her dark glasses she noticed that his eyes were completely black. A few days ago they had been a very human chestnut brown. “His boy’s gone over, and you’re missing that three.”

The man at her table didn’t look up. “I know. They had a big party over in Stapleton two nights ago to celebrate the occasion. Bunch of Quinn’s people ripped the window bars off of some public housing units and pulled children out of their bedrooms in the middle of the night. Parents found them the next morning.”

“And that’s when they hired you?”

“Came to me yesterday. Say they can’t make funeral arrangements until the guilty are caught.”

“Pay good? Parents must be willing to pay anything.”

The man tapped his finger thoughtfully on the tabletop. Tallah had hit a nerve. The people believed that their children wouldn’t rest in their graves if their killers remained unpunished. Sometimes they were right, murder victims did wander the roads and riverbanks at night. Or maybe it was the families who just couldn’t rest. Whatever the man’s motivations, money or justice, their ends were the same. Tallah made a mental note to curb her abrasive nature until the work was done and concentrated on the game.

Glancing up, she noticed that Quinn and his boy were feeding at the table, not even bothering to go into the private rooms in back. She nudged her companion.

“Guess some people just didn’t learn manners.” His accent drawled out the jes. If he didn’t already stick out like a sore thumb his speech was a dead giveaway.

Tallah bet that those girls were counting on being included in the special few Quinn allowed to live off of his wealth. She knew from experience that they’d all be dead by sunrise. She also knew that if she walked over and told them that they’d spit in her face. They wanted to believe that they were special, that it would be different with them. She turned away.

“It’s getting towards dawn. We’d better go outside.” She put down a generous tip for the waitress and stood up.

“Meet you there,” the man nodded to her. There was no question as to protocol here. Even though they were stalking the same quarry they needed to stay out of each other’s way. Any distractions here meant an ugly death.

Tallh-Ahn-Ri stepped out into the cold air of predawn. The night had lost most of its energy and even the diehard junkies that inhabited the alleys had crawled off to sleep somewhere. She checked where she had concealed her bike and fighting gear. Everything was there and untouched, as she knew it would be.

She climbed up, kicked it into gear, and pulled out into the alley. John Quinn never went back to his loft in a direct line, no vampire would, but he had grown complacent, lazy, and used the same three routes over and over again. Tallah knew all three by heart. Tonight they’d drive over the South Street bridge, pausing to dump anything unwanted over the railings, and then head home to his building to sleep off the night in the penthouse. Tonight she was going to make sure they didn’t make it home.

It took her about twenty minutes to set up and then she waited. The neighborhood was deserted, even the pimps and dealers considered it off limits, she had the area to herself. Tallah went methodically through her weapon’s check, not because anything needed checking she was too meticulous for that. She needed to keep her mind off the approaching cars. She couldn’t afford to get impatient.

As the stars began to fade from the sky, finally they came. Arrogant enough to race the sun, Quinn had left the club late, believing that nothing could delay him from going to ground. Three cars rolled to a stop in the middle of the bridge, a door opened, a body slid over the rail to be swallowed by the fast-moving river. Behind the cars the blacktop at the mouth of the bridge burst into flame. The men outside of the car whirled around to see a black and chrome motorcycle come roaring through the inferno as Tallh-Ahn-Ri announced her intentions. She cemented the challenge by kicking in the driver’s side window of the lead car as she sped by.

Quinn was enraged by the attack. Without waiting for his followers he climbed over the seat and shoved his human driver out the door. “Stop, you stupid bitch!” he screamed after her. “Nobody does that to me!”

Tallah raced down the other side of the bridge, tossed a lighter into the pool of greasy liquid she had poured across the exit, and calmly walked over to the opposite lane to stand between the abandoned toll booths. “Come and get me,” she whispered. “Come on…”

Three cars hurtled towards her, leaving a handful of stranded people running for cover. Quinn pressed the gas pedal down, aiming the limousine straight at Tallah, intending to thread the needle between the booths.

Tallah held her breath. “That’s the man… You’re the man…”

What John Quinn didn’t remember, what his driver would have known, was that the old toll bridge was one way only on either side. Sharp metal teeth still stuck up through metal grating to prevent cars from passing through the wrong direction. It was his ignorance that Tallah was counting on.

“Do not back up!” she quoted as he aimed straight at her. “Sever tire damage!”

She waited until the car was no more than a few seconds away from her, too late to stop, no room to swerve, when she sprang up like a cat, allowing it to pass beneath her. The car hit the metal teeth at sixty miles per hour, blowing all four tires. Quinn slammed on the brakes hard when he heard the explosion, sending the big car tumbling down the roadway, glass and blood in it’s wake.

Tallah sprang to the side, leaping up onto the bridge support while the other cars swerved too late and ploughed into the tollbooths. People were running towards her, running towards the wreck, those that Quinn had carelessly left standing on the bridge in his anger. She drew her swords and flipped forwards, back down to meet them. They were armed with knives and what pieces of wood and metal they had been able to grab. They were no match for Tallah-Ahn-Ri; trained by a Master Hunter with hundreds of years of dedication. She seemed to float in the air before them, not true flight for she had not the gift, but a blur of disorienting movement and speed. Still-mortal bones splintered at impact, weapons leaped from inexperienced hands, heads parted from shoulders as her swords sang through the night air and the fight was quickly over. Those watching turned and fled, she was in a hurry and let them go.

Then she turned and raced towards the limo, trying to reach it before Quinn had a chance to climb out. She had to get to him and his newly created offspring before the sun broke over the horizon. She wouldn’t die, but her powers would drain and she wouldn’t be able to fight or run. She dived down behind a wrecked car, crossbow in hand and waited. Nothing.

“Damn!” she hissed. He wasn’t coming out. She’d have to go in and get him.

Creeping noiselessly forward she approached the car which was lying on its side. There wasn’t any sound coming from inside. The human passengers probably hadn’t survived the crash, the car was mangled, but Quinn and his offspring weren’t human. She drew her sword, took a deep breath, and jumped up onto the door.

Quinn was inside, alive behind the wheel and in a bad way. The crash had sent the column through his chest, just missing the heart. He was choking on his own blood, arms and legs tangled in unnatural positions, jaw hanging askew. He looked up at her. He was begging.

“Shit!” She lowered her sword. “I should just leave you there. The sun will be up in a few minutes.”

Quinn started to struggle.

Tallah looked up at the sky. It had already turned from black to cobalt blue. “OK. Even I’d put an animal out of its misery.”

She sheathed her sword and pulled a razor-wire garrote out of its case. “I’ll make this quick.”

In a few seconds it was over. The morning sun would do the rest. Tallah looked at the other occupants of the twisted wreckage. Quinn’s spawn wasn’t among them, nor had he been ejected from the car. As that realization passed into her mind something hit her hard from the back, knocking her off the car and face first onto the pavement.

Quinn’s offspring was on top of her in a blur of dark motion, pinning her down, breathing with fetid breath on the back of her neck. “My, aren’t we the queen huntress?”

Tallah couldn’t move he was so strong and the sensation panicked her. He turned her over, pulled her up by the jacked and hit her back and forth across the mouth. Blood poured out over her lips and nose. The smell made his teeth emerge and he bent down over her with a murderous smile. All Tallah could do was to hiss up at him in an age-old primal warning that every predator understands.

He pulled back and regarded her. “I’ve heard about you. Tallah-Ahn-Ri, Half-Blooded Killer.”

She caught her breath. Was he about to change his mind? In the background she could hear commotion. Were the others coming for her?

“You did me a favor. I was getting tired of Quinn, would have killed him anyway,” he hissed. “Now I have his power and his money. I’ll make you a bargain. I’ll let you live as my mate, finish the job your Maker started.”

Tallah had made that decision two hundred years before this cocksure whelp had even been human. She spit blood and mucous up into his face.

“Stupid bitch!” he shouted, sounding much like John Quinn. “Meet your fate!”

She screamed in pain and agony as he bore down upon her like a lion onto its prey. He forced her head back and suddenly vomited blood all over her. Tallah twisted free as he arched up above her, arms flailing, trying to reach his back, squealing and hissing. Suddenly his head went flying off across the pavement, the body falling stiff and lifeless.

The man from the club was standing there, her garrote in his hands. “Looked like you needed some help.”

“Thanks.” She got painfully to her feet and felt her jaw. “He surprised me. Let me kill Quinn and then jumped me from behind. You’ve got good timing.”

He nodded and held out his hand. “You’re welcome. Name’s Jerry.”

“Call me Tallah.”

“I know who you are. It’s almost dawn, you’d better get a move on.”

“I’m going to ground. Meet me in Venice.”

He picked up his gear, jumped into a rusting hulk of a truck and headed for Quinn’s penthouse. She watched him go, mounted her bike and headed for home.

End of Part I The Feeding Room

Part II: The Towers of Venice