Kaine Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Kaine Nightshade held his last blessed round between two fingers and watched the frost on it refuse to melt against his skin. The coin-sized casing was etched with holy marks, silver wrapped around a hollow tip, cold the way only a thrice-blessed bullet stayed cold. One round. He had started the week with forty. The vampire lord who turned him three years ago was somewhere south of here, and Kaine could not finish that hunt with a single shot. He stood in a clearing where his last firefight had ended. A cracked stone marker rose from the snow, pocked with bullet holes from his rifle. Two fledglings had cornered him here four nights ago. He had put eleven rounds into the bigger one before it stopped moving. The marker had caught the rest. Frost still clung to the stone where his blessed silver had struck it. Kaine slid the final round into his magazine and slung the rifle across his back. His ammo pouch was empty for the first time since he started hunting. A small lynx watched him from the tree line, ears thin as paper, orange against the white. It did not run. Kaine had fed two hours ago on schedule, so the hunger stayed quiet. He nodded at the animal and walked past it. The rifle would refill itself with plain ammunition before he reached the road. Plain ammunition would not slow a vampire older than a year. He needed the blessing, and for that he needed a priest who took payment in problems instead of money. He walked until dawn and then through the day, hood up against the sun. By dusk he reached the place a dead courier had told him about a month ago, in exchange for a quick death. The entrance sat at the bottom of a stone stairwell cut into a hillside. Two iron lanterns burned on either side of a blue door. Above the door, a yellow sigil marked the keystone. Kaine pulled the bell rope. A slot opened. He held up the frost-cold round so the eyes on the other side could see it. The slot closed. The door opened. Inside, the basement ran longer than the hill above it. Racks of rifles lined the walls, finished in white camo, black lacquer, desert tan. Glass cases held bullets that hummed, bullets that smoked, bullets wrapped in prayer paper. A woman in a leather apron took his last round, weighed it, and named her price: a name, a location, and a favor owed. Kaine gave her the name of a nest he had been saving for himself. She slid a steel case across the counter, two hundred rounds, each one already cold to the touch. He loaded his magazine and stepped back into the night with a debt he did not yet know the shape of.