Hunting in Bruges Read online

  Hunting in Bruges

  By E.J. Stevens

  Hunting in Bruges

  E.J. Stevens

  Published by Sacred Oaks Press

  Copyright 2014 E.J. Stevens

  All rights reserved

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Coming Soon

  Also by E.J. Stevens

  Burning Bright

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “This was Bruges-la-Morte, the dead city, entombed in its stone quays, the arteries of its canals chilled to death at the cessation of the great heartbeat of the sea.”

  -Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte

  I’ve been seeing ghosts for as long as I can remember. Most ghosts are simply annoying; just clueless dead people who don’t realize that they’ve died. The weakest of these manifest as flimsy apparitions, without the ability for speech or higher thought. They’re like a recording of someone’s life projected not onto a screen, but onto the place where they died. Most people can walk through one of these ghosts without so much as a goosebump.

  Poltergeists are more powerful, but just as single-minded. These pesky spirits are like angry toddlers. They stomp around, shaking their proverbial chains, moaning and wailing about how something (the accident, their murder, or the murder they committed) was someone else’s fault, and how everyone must pay for their misfortune. Poltergeists are a nuisance; they’re noisy and can throw around objects for short periods of time, but it’s only the strong ones that are dangerous.

  Thankfully, there aren’t many ghosts out there strong enough to do more than knock a pen off your desk or cause a cold spot. From what I’ve discovered while training with the Hunters’ Guild, ghosts get their power from two things—how long they’ve been haunting and strength of purpose. If someone as obsessed with killing as Jack the Ripper manifests beside you on a London street, I recommend you run. If someone as old and unhinged as Vlad the Impaler appears beside you in Targoviste Romania, you better hope you have a Hunter at your side, or a guardian angel.

  The dead get a bad rap, and for good reason, but some ghosts can be helpful. There was a woman with a kind face who used to appear when I was in foster care. Linda wasn’t just a loop of psychic recording stuck on repeat; this ghost had free will and independent thought—and thankfully, she wasn’t a sociopath consumed with bloodshed. Linda manifested in faded jeans and dark turtleneck and smelled like home, which was the other thing that was unusual about her. Most ghosts are tied to one spot, the place where they lived or died. But Linda’s familiar face followed me from one foster home to another. And it was a good thing that she did. Linda the ghost saved my life more than once.

  Foster care was an excellent training ground for self defense, which is probably why the Hunters’ Guild uses it as a place for recruitment. Being cast adrift in the child welfare system gave me plenty of opportunities to hone my survival instincts. By the time the Hunters came along, I was a force to be reckoned with, or so I thought.

  The Hunters’ Guild provides exceptional training and I soon learned that my attempts at both offense and defense were child’s play when compared to our senior members. I didn’t berate myself over that fact; I was only thirteen when the Hunters swooped in and welcomed me into their fold. But learning my limitations did make me painfully aware of one thing. If it hadn’t been for Linda the ghost, I probably wouldn’t have survived my childhood.

  The worst case of honing my survival skills had been at my last foster home, just before the Hunters’ Guild intervened. I don’t remember the house mother. She wasn’t around much. She was just a small figure in a cheap, polyester fast food uniform with a stooped posture and downcast eyes. But I remember her husband Frank.

  Frank was a bully who wore white, ketchup and mustard stained, wife-beater t-shirts. He had perpetual French fry breath and a nasty grin. It took me a few weeks to realize that Frank’s grin was more of a leer. I’d caught his gaze in the bathroom mirror when I was changing and his eyes said it all; Frank was a perv.

  Linda slammed the door in his face, but that didn’t stop Frank. Frank would brush up against me in the kitchen and Linda would set the faucet spraying across the tiles…and slide a knife into my hand. My time in that house ended when Frank ended up in the hospital.

  I’d been creeping back to the bedroom I shared with three other kids, when I saw Frank waiting for me in the shadows. I pulled the steak knife I kept hidden in the pocket of my robe, but I never got a chance to use it. Now that I know a thing or two about fighting with a blade, I’m aware that Frank probably would have won that fight.

  I tried to run toward the stairs, but Frank met me at the top landing. Frank reached for me while his bulk effectively blocked my escape. That was when Linda the ghost pushed him down the stairs. I remember him tumbling in slow motion, his eyes going wide and the leering grin sliding from his face.

  Linda the ghost had once again saved me, but it seemed that this visit was her last. I don’t know if she used up her quota of psychic power, or if she just felt like her job here was finally done. It wasn’t until years later that I realized she was my mother.

  I guess I should have realized sooner that I was related to the ghost who followed me around. We both h
ave hair the same shade of shocking red. But where mine is straight and cropped into a short bob, Linda’s was wavy and curled down around her shoulders. We also share a dimple in our left cheek and a propensity for protecting the weak and innocent from evil.

  Linda the ghost disappeared, a wailing ambulance drove Frank to the hospital, police arrived at my foster house, and the Hunters swooped in and cleaned up the aftermath. It was from my first Guild master that I learned of my parents’ fate and put two and two together about my ghostly protector.

  As a kid I often wondered why Linda the ghost always wore a dark turtleneck; now I knew. Young, rogue vamps had torn out her neck and proceeded to rip my father to pieces like meat confetti. My parents were on vacation in Belize, celebrating their wedding anniversary when it happened. I’d been staying with a friend of my mother’s, otherwise I’d be dead too.

  I don’t remember my parents, I’d only been three when I was put into the foster care system, but I do find some peace in knowing that doing my duty as a Hunter gives me the power to police and destroy rogue vamps like the ones who killed my mother and father. When I become exhausted by my work, I think of Linda’s sad face and push myself to train harder. And when I find creeps who are abusive to women and children, I think of Frank.

  That’s how I ended up here, standing in a Brussels airport, trying to decipher the Dutch and French signs with eyes that were gritty from the twelve hour flight. It all started when my friend Ivy called to inform me that a fellow Hunter had hit our mutual friend Jinx. Ivy didn’t know how that information would push all my buttons, she didn’t know about Frank or my time in the foster system, but we both agreed that striking a girl was unacceptable. She was letting me, and the Hunters’ Guild, deal with it, for now.

  I went to master Janus, the head of the Harborsmouth Hunters’ Guild, and reported Hans’ transgressions. It didn’t help his case that he had a reputation as a berserker in battle. The fact that he’d hit a human, the very people we were sworn to defend against the monsters, was the nail in the coffin of Hans’ career.

  I was assured that Hans would be shipped off to the equivalent of a desk job in Siberia. I should have left it at that, and let my superiors take care of the problem. But Jinx was my friend. Ivy’s rockabilly business partner may have had bad luck and even worse taste in men, but that didn’t mean she deserved to spend her life fending off the attacks of the Franks in the world.

  Hans continued his Guild duties while the higher ups shuffled papers and prepared to send him away. Hans should have skipped our training sessions, but then again, he didn’t know who had ratted him out—and the guy had a lot of rage to vent. I stormed onto the practice mat and saluted Hans with my sword. It wasn’t long before the man started to bleed.

  We were supposed to be using practice swords, but I’d accidentally grabbed the sharp blade I used on hunting runs. I didn’t leave any lasting injuries, but the shallow cuts made a mess of his precious tattoos. I just hoped the scars were a constant reminder of what happens when you attack the innocent.

  One week later, I received a plane ticket and orders to meet with one of our contacts in Belgium. I wasn’t sure if this assignment was intended as a punishment or a promotion, but I was eager to prove myself to the Guild leadership. Master Janus’ parting words whispered in my head, distracting me from the voice on the overhead intercom echoing throughout the cavernous airport.

  “Do your duty, Jenna,” he said. Master Janus placed a large, sword-calloused hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. I swallowed hard, but I managed to keep my hands from shaking. “Make us proud.”

  “I will, sir,” I said.

  “Good hunting.”

  Chapter 2

  “It never hurts to have an exit strategy.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  I turned to follow a blue painted arrow and nearly ran into a scrawny guy with bad hygiene. For a split second, I wondered if this was my Belgian contact, but there was no way a Hunter’s body would shake and twitch like a cat toy on a string. This guy was either on something, or jonesing for his next fix.

  Definitely not a Hunter.

  “You want kiss, yes?” he asked. “You give Euros, we make out, yes?”

  I took one look at his jaundiced eyes and acne covered skin and shuddered. Even if the thought of kissing a total stranger wasn’t completely repulsive, and potentially against Guild rules since I was technically here on business, there was no way I’d touch this guy. He had disease vector stamped all over his twitchy face.

  Not that I even had any Euros. I hadn’t located the currency exchange office yet. I’d only just exited baggage claim and I was still trying to decipher the signs to the train station.

  My orders to leave Harborsmouth for a mission in Belgium had been unexpected. I hadn’t had time to learn a new language before being assigned to this post. I’d spent the long, trans-Atlantic flight cramming French and Dutch words from a Lonely Planet phrasebook into my head, but I was pretty sure the words hadn’t stuck. Thankfully, this guy seemed to know a bit of English.

  “No kissing,” I said, shifting the long, hard shell ski bag strapped to my back and folding my arms across my chest. I tried to look down my nose at the guy, but that wasn’t easy with my five foot two frame. Even hunched in on himself, the kid had a good six inches on me. My fingers itched for the sword sheathed in bubblewrap inside the high density polyethylene plastic ski bag. “But if you show me where the money exchange and railway ticket offices are, I’ll buy you something to eat.”

  “Euros? Cigarettes?” he asked.

  I sighed. “If you’re fast, I’ll throw in some Euros,” I said. “But I’m not tipping for standing around here all day.”

  The guy’s head twitched up and down in what I assumed was a nod and took off. I followed my sketchy tour guide, keeping a wary eye on his hands as he went. It wouldn’t do to be seen as a pickpocket’s accomplice, especially in a foreign country, but he kept his hands stuffed inside his hoodie.

  I’d probably regret encouraging the kid, but I knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of the foster families I stayed with pocketed the state checks intended for groceries and served substandard food, when they bothered to feed us at all. I recognized the pinched skin and look of desperation in his eyes.

  If it hadn’t been for the Guild, this kid could have been me. My cheeks burned and a familiar thickness filled my throat. I remembered the agonizing taunts from other school kids as I walked the halls in hand-me-down clothes that didn’t fit, the pitying glances from teachers, and the apathetic routine checks by tired social workers. Had this guy grown up in the system? Did he have to face someone like Frank each time he crept to the bathroom?

  “So, is the train station far from here?” I asked.

  My orders were to go to the train station where my contact would give me my assignment and travel documents. I assumed that the operative would instruct me to head into the city, and since Brussels Airport was located on the outskirts, the train made sense. Knowing the rendezvous location, and not much more, I’d searched the airport website for directions to the train station, but after two hours of shuffling through the lines for customs and border patrol, I didn’t have any patience left for the labyrinthine building. All I knew was the train station was somewhere in the bowels of the airport, and the sooner I got there, the sooner I could get my assignment and find a place to crash for a few hours.

  The kid nodded.

  “Food first?” he asked. “ATM?”

  “Okay, fine,” I said with a sigh. “Lead the way.”

  I used my credit card, courtesy of the Guild, to withdraw five hundred Euros. It was a lot of money, but it never hurt to have an exit strategy. Cash would help, should it come to that.

  I was, of course, careful to shield the ATM’s touchscreen from view, though I needn’t have worried. My guide seemed engrossed in his cannibalistic efforts to remove a hangnail.

  I secreted away most of the cash into two inner zip p
ockets inside my leather jacket and shoved some smaller bills into the back pocket of my skinny jeans. Turning from the ATM, I flashed the kid a smile and nodded toward the food court.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  He wiped blood from his mangled cuticle onto filthy jeans and nodded eagerly. The realization that some of that filth was old blood smears made my stomach churn unpleasantly, but I tried to look pleased as I followed the kid as he made his way to a familiar fast food chain.

  I grit my teeth, the smell of grease making my gorge rise, but I bought us two combo meals—coffee and grilled chicken salad for me and a soda, burger, fries, and an apple pie for the kid. I mechanically ate my salad, trying to ignore the kid and his trans fats. Though maintaining optimal health wasn’t the only reason I avoided greasy fast food.

  I shook my head. Five years, and burgers and fries still made me think of Frank. I loaded up on napkins, but I was aware of the hard, painful truth. Some things can’t be fully washed away, no matter how hard we try.

  I may be plagued by ghosts, but the dead aren’t the only ones who haunt my waking hours, or my dreams.

  Chapter 3

  “Immortals are nothing if not patient.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  I stifled a yawn and handed the kid a handful of Euros. It was time to get on with my mission. I shoved a napkin with a sketch of the train station into my pocket and headed for the nearest elevator.

  I followed the signs, struggling with the Dutch words, and for the hundredth time wondered why I’d been picked for this assignment. There were plenty of Dutch speakers in our organization. The Hunters’ Guild had its roots in Europe and our most notorious member, Van Helsing, had been Dutch after all. So why was the girl who preferred weapons to words sent here? Was this a punishment for what I’d done to Hans, or part of my training?

  The Guild was secretive, but I’d heard rumors that special assignments were used as ways to weed out the weak and advance those with the most potential. Old fears crept to the surface. Failure. Burden. Waste of space. During my years bouncing from one foster home to the next, I’d been greeted by those words more times than I can count. Since joining the Hunters’ Guild, I worked hard and trained hard, but a shaky, childlike voice huddled in a corner of my brain and whispered that it would never be enough.