Xan Tanner And The Vampire Band

The violinist did not wait. He cut between two souvenir shops, the red scarf flashing beneath the streetlamps.

Xan followed.

The passage narrowed behind the shops. Old brick pressed close on either side, wet and rough beneath his fingertips when he steadied himself against the wall. The music from the square thinned behind him, replaced by the clatter of a delivery cart and the distant growl of traffic.

At the alley’s end, the violinist was gone.

A torn strip of red cloth hung from a rusted fire escape.

Xan stopped beneath it. The cloth was damp. Not with rain.

Blood darkened his thumb when he touched it.

“Not yours,” said a voice above him.

Xan looked up.

A woman crouched on the fire escape, one boot hooked through the railing. She wore a black wool coat and a silver mask over the left side of her face. Her visible eye reflected the alley light with a pale, animal gleam.

“Who sent you?” Xan asked.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“Xan Tanner.”

The woman’s mouth tightened. “Then you’re late.”

“For what?”

She dropped from the fire escape.

She landed without bending her knees.

Xan stepped back, but the alley had already changed around him. A metal door slammed behind him. Another figure emerged from the darkness near the street, carrying an accordion case. A third came through the passage he had entered, a brass instrument tucked beneath one arm.

The violinist stood above them on a balcony, looking down.

The red scarf was gone.

“Five,” Xan said.

The woman smiled. “You count too quickly.”

The accordion case opened.

Nothing inside resembled an instrument. A length of chain whipped across the alley, catching the light as it came for Xan’s throat.

He ducked. The chain struck brick, throwing sparks. Xan drove his shoulder into the woman before she could reach him. Her body felt hard and cold beneath the coat. She caught his wrist and twisted.

Pain flashed through his arm.

He brought his forehead into her mask.

The silver cracked.

She released him with a hiss.

Xan ran toward the street.

The figure with the brass instrument swung it like a club. Xan caught the blow on his forearm. Bone jolted. He seized the instrument, wrenched it sideways, and shoved the attacker into a stack of empty crates.

Wood burst apart.

The alley filled with the sharp tang of old beer and something sweeter underneath - blood, fresh enough to belong to someone still moving.

The violinist dropped from the balcony.

He landed in front of Xan.

Up close, his skin had the waxy pallor of a candle left in a chapel. His pupils narrowed to black pinpoints.

“Tell your employer,” the violinist said, “that the route is closed.”

He opened his mouth.

Xan saw the fangs.

A flare burned blue in the violinist’s face.

The vampire recoiled, hands rising to shield his eyes. Xan had struck the flare against the wall without looking, relying on the old habit of keeping one in every pocket. Its chemical light shrieked across the alley.

The woman behind him screamed.

Xan sprinted.

He burst onto Saint-Paul Street with the flare burning at his back and tourists turning to stare. A horse-drawn carriage rolled past, its driver swearing as Xan crossed in front of it. He plunged into a crowd outside a bar, shoved through coats and scarves, and did not stop until the church bells swallowed the sound of pursuit.

The flare died in his hand.

His forearm throbbed. A thin line of blood ran from his palm where the chain had caught him.

He ducked beneath an awning and opened the envelope.

The briefing had included one name, written in blue ink beneath the description.

Mara Venn. Contact. Find her at the Black Lantern, Rue de la Commune. Ask for the song that has no chorus.

Xan looked toward the waterfront. The Black Lantern was three blocks east, past shuttered galleries and restaurants closing around their last customers. The street musicians had not attacked him by accident. They had known his name, his employer, and the question he had not yet asked.

Someone had warned them.

Or someone had sent him into the alley to make sure he understood the warning.

He folded the paper and entered the night.

The Black Lantern occupied the basement of a building that leaned toward the river as if listening to it. A red bulb burned over the door. No sign marked the entrance, but a painted lantern on the brick had been scratched through with five vertical lines.

Xan descended a narrow staircase.

Music thudded beneath his boots. Not live music. A recording of a woman singing in a language he did not recognize, her voice warped by static. The walls sweated damp. The handrail left rust on his palm.

A bartender watched him from behind a counter made of black wood.

“Mara Venn,” Xan said.

The bartender continued polishing a glass.

“The song that has no chorus.”

The cloth stopped.

“Private room,” the bartender said.

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

A door opened at the far end of the room.

Mara stepped out.

She was small, sharp-faced, and wrapped in a gray coat several sizes too large. Her hair had been shaved close on one side. A bruise darkened her throat.

“You’re Xan,” she said.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“Don’t use their jokes. They hear everything.”

Her gaze moved to his bleeding hand.

“You met the route.”

“I met three of them.”

“Then you met the wrong three.”

Xan followed her into the private room. It contained a table, two chairs, and a dead television mounted to the wall. A narrow window looked onto the street at ankle level. Passing feet crossed the glass like shadows.

Mara remained standing.

“Your briefing was false,” she said.

“Which part?”

“The route. They don’t perform from the waterfront to Saint-Paul.”

“They did tonight.”

“They perform wherever they’re told. The waterfront was bait.”

“By whom?”

Mara glanced at the door.

Xan heard nothing beyond the music, but her fear had a rhythm of its own. She kept one hand inside her coat.

“You need to leave Montreal,” she said.

“That isn’t the assignment.”

“The assignment is dead.”

“Then give me the living part.”

Her eyes hardened. “Five vampires. One unit. They rotate instruments, but the order stays the same. Violin, accordion, guitar, drum, brass. The first and last never speak while they’re playing. The drummer watches the crowd. The guitarist watches the exits.”

“And the fifth?”

“Guitar.”

“You said they rotate.”

“I said the order stays the same.”

Xan leaned against the table. “Where do they meet?”

Mara looked at him for a long moment. “You’re not carrying a recorder.”

“No.”

“Not a gun either.”

“Not one you can see.”

That almost earned him a smile. It vanished before it formed.

She took a folded tram map from her coat and placed it on the table. A black mark circled a narrow lane behind the old customs house.

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “After the last busker set. They meet here.”

“Why?”

“Because the river covers the sound.”

“Who gave you this?”

Mara’s fingers tightened on the map.

A crash sounded outside the room.

She flinched.

The door handle began to turn.

Xan reached for the map. Mara seized his wrist.

“If they see you with it, they’ll know I talked.”

“They already know.”

The handle jerked again.

Xan pulled the map free and shoved it inside his coat. Mara backed toward the window.

“You said the meeting was tomorrow.”

“It was.”

“What changed?”

Her face went pale.

“The fifth musician.”

The door burst inward.

A man in a soaked busker’s coat stood in the frame, his mouth open too wide. Behind him, the bartender lay across the counter, one hand twitching against the black wood.

Mara moved first. She kicked the dead television from its bracket. It crashed into the attacker, pinning him beneath a spray of glass.

“Window,” she said.

Xan grabbed her arm.

“Come with me.”

“I’m the reason they came.”

“They came for both of us.”

She tore free. “Then make sure they only get one.”

Mara thrust something into his hand: a brass subway token, old and green with tarnish. Five tiny cuts marked its edge.

“Station?” Xan asked.

“Not a station. A direction.”

The attacker shoved the television aside.

Mara struck a match and pressed it to the curtain.

Flame raced up the fabric.

Xan climbed through the window as smoke rolled across the ceiling. His boots hit the alley behind the club. He turned back.

Mara stood in the burning room, framed by orange light and black smoke.

“Rue Saint-Antoine,” she called. “The broken clock. Midnight.”

The vampire reached her.

Xan saw Mara drive the brass token into its eye.

Then the window filled with flame.

He ran.

The alley spilled him onto the waterfront, where the river slapped against the stone embankment. Behind him, the Black Lantern’s fire alarm began to scream. Sirens answered from somewhere west.

In his fist, the subway token cut into his skin.

The map inside his coat was damp with blood, but the circled lane remained visible. Rue Saint-Antoine. The broken clock. Midnight.

A meeting point, half-verified and paid for with a burning informant.

Xan looked back at the red glow beneath the club’s windows.

He had found the trail.

He had also lost the only person who could confirm whether five vampires would be waiting at its end.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.