Her companion reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a thin, foot-long blade. It was a delicate weapon, slender and razor sharp, made for precision. Somehow, it seemed more frightening than if the vampire had drawn an ax or even a gun.
"Allison," Kanin muttered, stepping in front of me, "stay back. Don't engage them. Don't try to help me, understand?" I growled, gripping the sheath of my katana. "I'm not afraid of them. I can help."
"Promise me," Kanin said in a low, tense voice. "Promise me you will not get involved."
"But-"
He turned, pinning me with a cold, frightening glare. His eyes had darkened to pure black, hollow and depthless, with no light behind them. "Your word," he almost whispered. I swallowed.
"All right." I looked down, unable to meet that unnerving gaze. "I promise."
He reached down and grasped the hilt of my katana, drawing it in one smooth motion as he turned to face his attackers.
"Go," he told me, and I backed away, retreating behind a cement pillar as Kanin gave the katana a wicked f lourish and stepped forward.
The female vamp hissed and sank into a crouch, stretching the fabric of her suit. I saw her nails then, very long and red and sharp, like giant talons, digging into the pavement.
She hissed again, looking more like a beast than anything re-motely human, and sprang forward.
Kanin met her in the center of the room, the katana whirling through the air. They moved faster than I could follow, slashing, whirling, leaping back and lunging forward again.
The female vamp moved like some kind of mutant cat, springing at Kanin on all fours, even in high heels, raking at him with her claws. She was insanely fast, ducking the sword, leaping over it, teeth f lashing as she shrieked and screamed and danced around him. Watching them fight, a cold feeling spread through my gut. I'd seen brawls before, even partici-pated in a few. This wasn't a brawl; this was a brutal, screaming free-for-all between two monsters. I couldn't have beaten her, I realized with a sick feeling in my gut. Kanin was doing fine, fending off her attacks and striking back, vicious blows that barely missed the snarling whirlwind of death, but she would've torn me apart.
I was so focused on the female vamp, I didn't see the other vampire until he was behind Kanin, that thin, sharp blade moving to take off his head. I started to yell a warning, cursing myself for not seeing him sooner: the female was a colorful, lethal distraction while her partner moved in silently for the kill. But before I could say two words, Kanin's hand shot out, grabbed the female by the hair as she shrieked and clawed at his face, and threw her into her partner. They hit each other with a sickening crack. The male vampire stum-bled backward, wincing, while the female vampire crumpled to the ground.
I thought that was it for her. The force Kanin had generated could've put a hole through a brick wall. But a half second later, the vampiress stirred and rose to her feet, shaking her head. She didn't even look dazed.
Now I was scared. I was certain the fight had been half over, but both enemy vamps approached Kanin again, smiling.
Kanin waited patiently, the sword at his side. Blood streamed down the side of his face where the vampiress had clawed him, but he didn't seem to notice it. As they got closer, they split off, circling him from different directions. He raised the sword, circling with them, but he couldn't watch them both at the same time.
As expected, the vampiress attacked first, bounding in with a growl, and Kanin spun toward her. But halfway there, she stopped, leaping away, and the male vampire lunged at Kanin's open back.
Faster than thought, Kanin whirled, slashing at the second attacker, a blow that was vicious and powerful, but also left his back unprotected again. The male vampire ducked away, grinning, as the vampiress turned on a heel and f lew at Kanin once more, silent and deadly. I saw the triumph in her eyes as she leaped at him, fangs bared, claws slashing down at his neck.
Kanin didn't move. But I saw the point of the blade turn as he spun it around and stabbed backward, passing it against his ribs, and the vampiress's lunge carried her right onto the tip, which went out through her back.
The vampiress screamed, equal parts fury and pain, and ripped at Kanin's shoulders. He stepped forward and in one quick motion, drew his other blade, yanked the sword out of the vamp's stomach and spun, cutting off her head.
The head bounced twice, then rolled toward me and stopped a few feet away, glaring up with a frozen snarl. I shuddered and looked back toward the fight, where Kanin was still facing the remaining vampire. It roared, fangs bared, and lunged at him with the knife stabbing at his chest. Kanin took one step back, sweeping both arms forward in a scissoring motion as the vampire came within reach, cutting through its head and chest. The head fell away and the body split open, and the vampire crumpled to the pavement, nearly cut in two.
I bit my cheek, pressing my face against the pillar to avoid being sick. I didn't have much time to recover, as Kanin swept up and hauled me away, thrusting the sword back into my arms.
"Hurry," he ordered, and I didn't need encouragement this time. We raced back to the hospital, where Kanin told me to stay put and not leave the underground until I heard from him again.
"Wait. Where are you going?" I asked.
"I have to go back and dump the bodies," he replied.
"Somewhere on the surface, to lead the Prince away from the tunnels. Also, I'm going to have to feed before the night is out. Stay here. I'll be back before dawn." He leaped up the elevator shaft, vanishing into the darkness, leaving me alone. I drew my sword, staring at the blood marring the once-pristine blade, and wondered what demons Kanin was running from.
Chapter 7
In the weeks that followed, my nights settled into a routine. I would wake up at sundown, grab my sword and find Kanin in the office. For a few hours, he would lecture me on vampire society, history, feeding habits, strengths and weaknesses. He would ask me questions, testing my knowledge of things I'd learned the night before, pleased when I remembered what I was supposed to. He also insisted on teaching me math, writing down simple and then more complex equations for me to solve, patiently explaining them when I couldn't. He made up logic puzzles for me to struggle through and gave me complex documents to read, asking me what they meant when I was done. And though I hated this, I forced myself to concentrate. This was knowledge, something I might be able to use against the vampires someday. Besides, Mom would've wanted me to learn, though I wasn't sure when long division would ever come in handy.
While I worked, Kanin read, shuff ling through documents, sometimes bringing in more boxes of papers to sift through.
Sometimes, he would read an entire stack of paper, carefully setting each aside when he was done. Sometimes he would only glance at a pile of documents before crumpling them impatiently and shoving them away. As the days passed, he grew more impatient and agitated with every sheet he crumpled in his fist, every wad he threw across the room. When I got up the nerve, once, to ask him what he was looking for, I received an annoyed glare and a terse command to keep working. I wondered why he hadn't left the city yet; the vampires were obviously out there, looking for him. What was so important that he would risk staying down here in this dark little ruin, going through endless files and half-burned documents? But Kanin kept me so busy with learning everything he thought was important-vampire history and reading and math-that I didn't have the time or brain capacity to wonder about other things.
And really, I could respect that. He had his secrets, and I had mine. I wasn't about to go poking around his private life, especially when he didn't ask me anything about my past, either. It was sort of an unspoken truce between us; I wouldn't pry, and he would keep teaching me how to be a vampire.
Anything that didn't have to do with survival wasn't that important.
After midnight was my favorite time. After several hours of straining my brain, getting bored and irritated and feeling as if my head was about to explode, Kanin would finally announce that I could stop for the night. After that, we would make our way to our f loor's reception area, which he had cleared of debris and chairs and broken furniture, and he would teach me something different.
"Keep your head up," he stated as I lunged at him, swinging my sword at his chest. At first, I was a little worried, fighting him with a live blade. It shocked me, how quickly I could move, so fast that sometimes the room blurred around me, the sword weighing next to nothing in my hands. But Kanin made it clear that he was in no danger, after the first lesson left me crumpled in my bed for the rest of the night, bruised and aching, freaky vampire healing or not.
Stepping aside, Kanin rapped me on the back of the head with a sawed-off mop handle, not lightly. My skull throbbed, and I turned on him with a snarl.
"You're dead," Kanin announced, waggling the dowel at me. I bared my fangs, but he wasn't impressed. "Stop using the blade like an ax," he ordered, as we circled each other again. "You're not a lumberjack trying to hack down a tree.
You're a dancer, and the sword is an extension of your arm.
Move with the blade and keep your eyes on your enemy's upper body, not their weapon."
"I don't know what a lumberjack is," I growled at him. He gave me an annoyed look and motioned me forward again.
I gripped the hilt, relaxing my muscles. Don't fight the sword, Kanin had told me on countless occasions. The sword already knows how to cut, how to kill. If you're tense, if you only use brute strength, your strikes will be slow and awkward. Relax and move with the blade, not against it.
This time, when I attacked, I let the blade lead me there, darting forward in a silver blur. Kanin stepped aside, swatting at my head with the dowel again, but I half turned, catching the stick with my weapon, knocking it aside. Pushing forward, I let the sword slide up toward Kanin's neck, and he instantly fell backward to avoid being cut in the throat.
I froze as he rolled to his feet, looking mildly surprised.
I blinked at him, just as shocked as he was. Everything had gone by so fast; I hadn't even had time to think about my actions before they were done.
"Good!" Kanin nodded approval. "You can feel the difference now, can't you? Let your strikes be smooth and f lowing-you don't have to hack at something to kill it." I nodded, looking at my blade and feeling, for the first time, that we had worked together, that I wasn't just swinging a random piece of metal around the room.
Kanin tossed the dowel into a corner. "And, on that note, we should stop for the night," he announced, and I frowned.
"Now? I was just getting the hang of this, and it's still early.
Why stop?" I grinned and brandished the sword, shooting him a challenge down the bright metal. "Are you scared that I'm getting too good? Is the student finally surpassing the master?"
He raised an eyebrow, but other than that, his expression remained the same. I wondered if he had ever laughed, really laughed, in his entire unlife. "No," he continued, motioning me out of the room. "Tonight we're going hunting." I slipped the katana into its sheath on my back and hurried after, excitement and uneasiness fighting within me. Ever since the encounter with the vampires, over three weeks ago, we hadn't left the hospital grounds. It was too dangerous to roam the tunnels now, too risky to venture up top, where anyone could see us. I had fed about two weeks ago, when Kanin had given me a thermos half filled with cooling blood when I woke up. He hadn't said where he'd gotten it, but the blood tasted thin and grimy and somehow reeked of mole men.