“Yes. Please.” Will tried using his manners. They didn’t feel comfortable, but they did feel appropriate. He still could not get his head around the entire situation. Vampires were fake movie creatures that had never appealed to or held much interest for him.
“You will be my hunting dog.”
“What the fuck?”
“You are going to hunt down others of my kind. Successful vampires know how to integrate with the human world. But there are others, too many really, who go feral with their hungers and have to be stopped. That will be your job.”
“How could I ever stop a creature like you?”
“You couldn’t,” Maddox smiled indulgently. “But you are more than capable of taking down the fresh-born ferals I speak of. Those without proper progenitors or lineage, those made by an accidental or careless feeding.”
“And why is that my job? Why me?”
Maddox leaned in with what felt like a warm and approving smile. “Because you are a natural born predator. Your instincts told you to attack me before your mind knew what I was because your body knew already. You could not help yourself. When you find yourself confronted by the kind of creature I speak of, you will do what needs to be done — and you will enjoy it.”
“Why don’t you kill them yourself?”
“For the same reason I don’t sweep my own streets or run my own bank. These roles are specialized.”
“So you don’t really work for the government.”
“Of course I do. The government has a vested interest in its citizens not being slaughtered like cattle every time they step out after dark.”
“But… they… nobody knows about this. Not even the conspiracies cover this.”
“There are a lot of dark budgets out there, for a lot of dark things,” Maddox said with a slight shrug. “I do my work. I let others do theirs. Besides, the public does know about vampires, if it really stops to think about it. But it doesn’t want to. It wants to think about nice things. Human things. Happy families. Holidays. Pets. You and I, and others like us, are just some of the horrors who stand at the verges of the human world, keeping it safe from all the worse things lurking. Your natural desire to destroy has a purpose. But like so many of your kind, you were kept from knowledge of that purpose. You became feral in a sense yourself. Fortunately, you are not too far gone to be useful.”
“To who?”
“To the world, pup,” Maddox smiled.
4
Welcome to the Hunt
They were out again in the city. It still felt very strange for Will to be allowed to roam freely, though admittedly while he was in Maddox’s presence there was not much in the way of true freedom to be had. The collar around his neck was a constant reminder of that.
“Up here,” Maddox said, leading Will out onto the roof of a building. Below there was a closed butcher shop, a travel agency, and a store that sold different kinds of pens. Up here, Brooklyn unfolded around them, brownstones holding human souls in conveniently boxed locations. Will couldn't help but think about how easy it would be to break in through a few windows and avail himself of whatever was inside. Criminal impulses to moments of opportunity were hard to shake, especially no more than a few days out of prison.
“Come,” Maddox said, beckoning him to the back of the building. There was an alleyway back there, a typical Brooklyn back passage filled with misery and dumpsters. Will was still wondering how much cash a pen store would have on hand.
“There,” Maddox took him by the back of his head and directed his gaze down to where a person in a ripped suit was hunched over the unhealthily pale, closer to gray body of a homeless man.
Will watched impassively. He had seen many terrible things happen behind bars. Not reacting was a well-honed survival instinct. That did not mean he was not horrified. Even the most graphic violence behind bars was usually limited to stabbing and biting. It was rare to see actual disembowelment. The victim’s innards were everywhere, strung about the place like a chaotic Christmas display of entrails.
It was not a person responsible for all this hideous mess, of course. It was a vampire. A filthy, dirty creature more like an animal than a person.
“That is a feral,” Maddox explained. “See the way it fails to hide its hunger? How it stalks in the open? How it kills indiscriminately without regard for the victim? How it has left a blood trail that any policeman with even half an interest in solving the crime could follow?”
“It is messy,” Will agreed.
“Very messy. I do not tolerate mess in my city.”
“So what are you, the vampire mayor of New York?”
“Something like that,” Mads smiled. “Now. Go kill.”