I Hunt Killers
Author: Barry Lyga
Date: 2012-04-03 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Young Adult; Mystery; Thriller; Horror; Crime; Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Contemporary; Suspense; Teen
Description: You’re seventeen years old and your father is the most notorious serial killer America has ever produced. He brought you up. Taught you everything he knows. Everyone in your ordinary American town knows who you are. So even though Dear Old Dad is safely behind bars, when the killing starts all over again, you are the first person the police come to see… They don’t know whether it’s nature or nurture. And neither do you…
Publisher: Corgi

CONTENTS

Title Page

Blood Boy

About this Story

About the Author

Also by Barry Lyga

Back Matter/Credits

BLOOD BOY
an I Hunt Killers prequel

Barry Lyga

HOWIE STAGGERED OUT OF the hallway and into the living room, his temple bleeding profusely, the left side of his face covered in bruises.

“Howie!” Mom screamed, bolting off the sofa in a blur. Dad, always the slower of the two of to react, blinked stupidly for a moment before saying, "What the hell...?" as though asking questions would help in some way.

Mom damn near teleported to him, hands hovering just above his skin, wanting to touch, afraid to touch. She stood five six-and-a-half, five nine in heels, but that was an action figure next to Howie's towering height. The top of her head came to his throat, meaning he always had a nice whiff of whatever hair product she'd used most recently. Today was some kind of strawberry and mango concoction, which made Howie think of smoothies, which made his stomach rumble.

"What happened?" Mom howled, and turned to Dad. "Don't just sit there! Call 911! Get the bandages--"

"Chill, Mom." Howie put what he liked to think were calming hands on her shoulders and pushed her slightly away from him. "I'm fine. I just needed to see if it worked."

"If what worked?" She goggled at him, exploring him with searching, terrified eyes.

"The makeup," he told her. "For Halloween."

Mom stared for a protracted moment. Behind her, still on the sofa, Dad rolled his eyes and grunted something noncommittal.

"This is your Halloween costume?" Mom's jaw twitched the way it did whenever Howie did...well, did pretty much anything, really. That jaw of hers got one hell of a workout.

“Gotta own it, Mom!” He stooped a little bit and checked himself out in the fancy mirror Mom had bought at a consignment shop. He looked suitably grotesque. Car accident, maybe. Or trip-and-fall-into-the-fridge-door. Something like that.

Shivering slightly, she stepped away from him, tears glimmering in her eyes. "Don't. Do that. To me," she said very quietly.

Howie shrugged. "I'm fine. What are you all worked up about?"

"You can't just traipse around like. Not with your condition. I worry, Howie."

"I'm sixteen, Mom. I'm gonna be out of here in a couple of years. What are you gonna do, put cameras in my college dorm to make sure--"

But she'd left the room already, rushing down the hall toward the bathroom.

"I did think dinner was a little rich tonight," Howie said.

"Don't be an idiot," Dad said, never lifting his gaze from his iPad. "Go apologize to your mother."

"I didn't do anything," Howie protested.

"You stabbed her through the heart." Dad's tone was casual. "Again. Apologize. It's the right thing to do."

Howie sighed like Atlas and loped toward the bathroom. Halfway there, his dad called out. Turning around, Howie beheld his father gazing at him from the sofa.

"Damn good job, by the way. Maybe you should go into special effects or something."

Howie pshawed. "There's no chicks in special effects, Dad."

*****

MOM EMERGED FROM THE bathroom after Howie threatened to knock on the door hard enough to bruise his knuckles. Which would not have been all that hard.

"You can't do that to me," she whispered. Her eyes were red and Howie felt like he'd just kicked a puppy, so he reacted the only sensible way he knew.

"You need to chill," he told her sternly. "You're too sensitive. I'm supposed to be the one who bruises easily. You have, like, psychic hemophilia. And I guess I'm sorry I was a dickbag, if that's the sort of thing that offends your delicate sensibilities."

"Don't use that kind of language around me." She hugged him, gently, always so gently.

*****

A FEW HOURS LATER, the test run successful, Howie finished up his makeup job, continuing the bruising down his body before heading out.

Mom caught him at the front door. "You should at least wear real pants," she complained.

He glanced down at his shorts, which revealed roughly ten meters of leg, much of it "bruised" and "contused." "It's seventy degrees out," Howie told her. "In October. Your generation managed to screw the planet with global warming; at least let me enjoy it before I drown when the oceans rise."

"Will Jasper be there?" Mom asked.

Howie had anticipated this question. Truth be told, it did not require Cassandra-level foresight to predict it; Mom asked if Jazz would be present every chance she got. Hell, when Howie went to the bathroom, she wanted to know if Jasper (at least she'd stopped calling him "the Dent boy") would be there.

"I don't think so," he lied smoothly. "He's busy with that new girlfriend of his."

Dad clucked his tongue from somewhere within earshot. Howie couldn't tell if it was disbelief that Jazz was macking on a lady or disappointment that Howie was currently -- and perpetually -- unattached.

"I know what I don't think so means," Mom said shrewdly, eyes narrowing. "I don't want you riding around in that Jeep of his."

Jazz's Jeep was no more dangerous than any other vehicle, and Jazz was actually a pretty decent driver.

But the Jeep was a hand-me-down from Jazz's father, Billy Dent. Also known as Hand-in-Glove, the Artist, Green Jack, and a billion other of the absolute worst super-hero names in the known universe. Butcher Billy was the leading favorite these days, mainly because Billy had, indeed, butchered many, many people in his serial killing career.

"There are no ghosts in the Jeep," Howie told her.

"Still."

"I won't ride in the Jeep," Howie swore, knowing he would break this promise in the next twenty minutes.

Mom always looked worried and nervous, but for some reason, she seemed even more so this night. Maybe it was Halloween, giving her the spooks.

Propelled by some instinct that he hated and tried to ignore — but couldn’t —  Howie bent down to kiss her on the top of her head. "I'll be fine, Mom. It's just a party. I've heard the odds are, like, four or five to one that no one will die."

"Those are pretty good odds," she admitted, finally grinning. "Have fun."

And then, because things were going too well, he pretended to bang his head on the top of the doorframe on his way out.

*****

JAZZ DIDN’T LIVE FAR away, his crazy grandmother's house being close enough that you could almost walk it. Almost, but not quite. Very little was in walking distance in Lobo’s Nod. It was a small town, but for some reason, the smaller the town, the more badly you needed a car to get anywhere.

Howie pulled into the Dent driveway and parked. Jazz was just coming out the front door, locking it carefully behind him. With a groan and a moan, Howie pushed open his car door and spilled out of the car. When Jazz did nothing, Howie picked himself up and stumbled over to his best friend, limping, lurching from side to side. "Jazz... Stopped too fast... Hit my head..."

Jazz coolly looked him up and down in roughly half a second and said, "Nice makeup.” He strode to where the Jeep waited, silent and bland.

"Not...makeup..." Howie groaned, following him. "Hurts so bad... Call 911..."

"I'm sure," Jazz said, and yawned. "What are you supposed to be?"

"I'm Victim number one hundred. Billy's diamond anniversary."

Jazz didn't so much as twitch. "Number one hundred was a sixteen year old girl named Patricia--"

"You're less fun than my parents," Howie complained. "How is that even possible?"

"Lots of hard work and Billy’s version of Take Your Son to Work Day."

"Touché!" Leaning against the Jeep, he noticed that Jazz was wearing a pair of old-ish jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a pair of shoes that could charitably be described as "unfashionable, boring, out-of-date, and lame." "You do realize this is a costume party, right? And that we humans dress in costume for costume parties."

Jazz shrugged. "I'm going as a normal person."

"And you do an admirable impression of one, I must say. Almost had me convinced.” He jerked his chin toward the dark house. "How's Gramma Dearest?"

Jazz's grandmother was a nice old lady. She was also a raging bitch-demon from the lowest pits of hell. Which one surfaced at any point in time depended on some formula of factors that Howie had never figured out. One minute, she could be puttering around the kitchen, intent on baking cookies. The next, she'd be hiding under the kitchen table with a big knife, wondering why the Democrats were writing legislation to make her brain illegal. Unable to read her, Howie had instead learned how to read Jazz. He could tell pretty quickly if it was a good Gramma day or a bad Gramma day.

Today was a good Gramma day -- Jazz shrugged diffidently and said, "So-so," which was the Jazz equivalent of bursting into song with little cartoon birds twittering and tweeting around his head.

"So we can stay out little later than usual, then?"

"Sure. Let's go." Jazz slid into the driver's seat of the Jeep.

Howie didn't move. "I'm forbidden by parental edict from riding in Billy's Jeep of Death, so you'll have to force me."

"Get in or I'll kill you," Jazz said tonelessly.

What else could Howie do? Clearly terrified for his very life, he had no choice but to comply. He hopped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

"I can't believe I finally talked you into going to a Halloween party. Hell, to any party!" Howie rubbed his hands together gleefully.

"You didn't. Connie did."

Connie was Jazz's...girlfriend, Howie supposed. They'd been dating for a couple of weeks, whereby dating meant seeing a few movies and stealing makeout sessions in Connie's driveway. Given that even on a good Gramma day, Jazz's grandmother was almost hilariously racist, Jazz couldn't very well bring her to his place. And Howie imagined most fathers wouldn't be thrilled to have the spawn of Billy Dent in their houses.

Since dating Connie, there'd been a change in Jazz, a change Howie was glad to see, though he would never, ever admit it. He was the tiniest bit more relaxed, and he'd joined, of all things, the Drama Club. Which, in a way, was perfect -- who had more drama in his life than Jazz?

"Let me have my dreams, Jazz. Why do you have to kill my dreams? Why can't you let them live? Why can't you be merciful?"

He was teeing Jazz up to say something melancholy and doleful. Maybe something like, Because my dad never taught me mercy. Or Because all of my dreams died a long time ago.

Instead, Jazz shrugged and put the Jeep in gear. "Because I like the way they scream when they die."

"That Connie girl is just no good for you," Howie grumbled. "You might actually be something like normal someday, and then where does that leave us?"

“Happy?” Jazz said in a tone that didn’t believe it.

“Good luck with that.”

Jazz put the Jeep in gear and rolled them down the driveway. Even though there was no one behind them, he signaled his turn onto the road. Soon they were on their way. Howie rolled down his window and hand-surfed the wind.

"Do you have any idea what you could sell this thing for?" he asked, peering around the confines of the Jeep. A part of him always expected to find something lingering from Billy's days of stalking his prey, even though the cops had thoroughly scoured every micron of the Jeep when they'd impounded it after arresting Billy. They'd discovered exactly nothing, as well as a little more nothing, which was why Jazz had it.

"I don't care," Jazz told him. "I need it to get around."

"If you sold it," Howie pointed out, "you would make so much money you could hire someone to drive you around."

"I doubt it."

Mouth open, ready to speak, Howie changed his mind. On a whim, he'd poked around one night on one of the crazy-ass serial killer fanboy message boards. Under the pseudonym BillyFan125 (BillyFan124 was taken), he'd casually inquired as to what someone might pay for Billy Dent's Jeep. The enthusiasm of the responses had startled him, as had the range of offers, none of which was less than five figures.

A couple of days later, he'd received a PM on the board from someone pseudonymmed GoingUnderAgain, who had said, in part, "I notice your IP address is from Lobo's Nod. Do you have a line on the Jeep? I will outbid anyone else. No questions asked."

The message had gone on in that vein, persuading Howie that GoingUnderAgain was very serious and very rich and also very, very serious and also very, very rich and also so, so freaking serious.

So much for online anonymity. Howie had deleted the account and considered tossing his laptop in the trash just to be sure. Still, the idea was there. Jazz could make a bundle selling this heap.

"You never know," Howie said noncommittally.

"Profiting off Billy's murders would be wrong." And then, because something human issuing forth from Jazz's mouth always came at a price, he said, "And I'm not going down that route."

"You know, making a little money to help yourself and your grandmother doesn't make you a serial killer. It's not like Billy left you with the means to rake in the cash."

"He did exactly that. Selling his legacy." Jazz signaled onto the highway on-ramp. TYNAN RIDGE said the sign. "And I won't do it. And remind me again why we're going all the way to Tynan Ridge for a Halloween party?"

Gazing out the window as though something utterly fascinating hung out there in the dark waste, Howie lied smoothly and easily, "Just wanted to try something different this year. Tired of the old Nod scene."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

Jazz had a built-in lie detector that seemed to ping for everyone and everything except for Howie. Howie could slip falsehoods by Jazz in ways that no one else could. He wasn't about to tell Jazz the real reason they were going to Tynan Ridge.

So simple, though.

In Tynan Ridge, no one knew Howie.

*****

THEY ARRIVED AT THE party house in Tynan Ridge a little past nine o'clock. Some late trick-or-treat stragglers ambled along the sidewalks. Cars were crammed in the driveway and up the block. The house itself was a medium-sized Colonial in a development packed with them, a clone that stood out only by the pulsating lights and throbbing music coming from within.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Jazz asked.

"Um--"

"I'm joking."

"Oh. Give me a heads up next time. I’ll be sure to laugh.”

Howie unfolded himself from the passenger seat and stretched. His life seemed, sometimes, to be a series of unfolding and stretching into a world that was too small for someone so tall. If only he were allowed to play basketball — fame and fortune would be his as the greatest white player since that other white dude, and he could afford to build a world around him scaled to his height.

“I guess we go in now?” Jazz asked, eyeing the door to the house as though Billy lurked behind it. To Jazz, Howie knew, it was far worse. Billy would greet his son with a hug; the kids in this house, if they recognized Jazz, would be far less enthusiastic.

“That’s usually how it works, yeah.” Howie peered around. “Where’s your Nubian princess? I thought she was meeting us here?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say stuff like that anymore. It’s not PC.”

“Right. I forgot. Where’s your Nubian equal-partner?”

“Howie.”

“What? I didn’t say princess. I know that’s, like, sexist and stuff.”

A gentle sigh was all the reaction he could prod out of Jazz tonight, so Howie gave in. They trooped up to the door and Jazz was actually about to knock, the big geek, when Howie shoved the door open. “Breaking and entering!” he chortled. “Just like Dear Old Dad used to, right?”

Jazz shrugged and they entered into a foyer that overflowed with bodies, many of them jutting uncomfortable costume parts randomly. House music pumped and throbbed, as though the house had a heartbeat, one going into overdrive. Trying to avoid being impaled by some guy gesturing with a homemade lightsaber, Howie managed to jam his back against the doorknob. He grinned into the sudden pain.

“You see Connie anywhere?” Jazz asked.

Down amongst the normal-heighted, Jazz couldn’t see much, but Howie had the advantage of a Lebron-like vantage point. The foyer led off in three directions — through an archway to what looked like a living room, down a hallway into the depths of the house, and up a flight of stairs that ascended into darkness, no doubt the family bedrooms, where much hooking up would commence. Howie planned to be a part of that.

“I see her,” he said, catching sight of Connie. She was making her way down the hallway, fighting against a tide of bodies. “Forward! Mush!”

Between the two of them, they shoved through the crowd. Connie spied Howie above the throng and gestured to one side. The three of them met in the living room, which was a little less sardine-y. Connie perched on the arm of the sofa, crossing her legs at the ankles. She wore black boots, a red wig, and a skintight black one-piece suit that zipped up the middle, stopping right at that perfect place Howie loved so much, where it seemed like the boobs might fall out of their own accord. They never did, but a man could dream, right?

“Who are we this evening?” she asked Jazz, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

“He’s normal,” Howie said with disgust.

Connie smiled. “I approve.”

With a snort, Howie crossed his arms over his chest. “You would.”

“And what are you supposed to be?" Connie asked him.

"I am the face of spousal abuse," Howie intoned with utter seriousness. "Until women stop beating up their husbands, I will wear this makeup in solidarity with…"

He trailed off as Connie's interest slid away. She had learned far too quickly when to ignore him. It was vexing. Usually people took much, much longer to get to this point. But she was already turning back to Jazz, taking his hand and holding it in both of her own. It was sweet and adorable and nauseating.

“Who are you?” Howie asked.

Connie hopped off the sofa and cocked one hip, pointing at him with a gadget strapped to her wrist. "I'm Black Widow.”

“Duh. I’ve seen the movies. But Black Widow is white. ScarJo. I have followed her boobs—um, her career with great, bouncing interest.” He bobbed his head as though following a tennis ball or a starlet’s chest. “Oh, wait. Black Widow. Black Widow. I get it now. But shouldn't it be Black Black Widow? Or African-American Widow? Far be it from me to lecture you on the finer points of political correctness--"

"Far be it," Connie said drily.

"--but it seems to me that African-American Widow would be more ethnically sensitive. Or maybe even Surviving Partner of Color." He snapped his fingers. "Yeah, that's it. Surviving Partner of Color."

"Can you shut him up?" Connie asked Jazz.

"Sure, but I'd have to kill him," Jazz said.

Connie stared, open-mouthed at Jazz.

"Was that not funny?" Jazz asked.

"Not at all," Connie said, and actually shivered.

Jazz turned to Howie. “Really? It was a joke. Honest.”

"Keep working on it. You'll get there. But, uh, in the meantime, for no reason at all, I'm gonna go mingle."

He sidled away from them, leaving them in their own little world of lovers and puppy dogs and sweet nothings and whatever else people who were gettin’ some had in their little worlds.

First order of business: The kitchen. He needed something to drink and he needed it right away. He zeroed in on a dude dressed as gigantic, overflowing bag of garbage. He carried the infamous, ubiquitous Red Plastic Cup, stumbling a bit from side to side, six inches shorter than Howie, but almost as wide as he was tall. The guy plowed into Howie, elbowing him just under the ribs, and Howie whooshed.

“Sorry, man,” the guy said, peering blearily up at Howie. “Holy crap. Are you that tall or am I that drunk?”

“Both?” Howie suggested.

The guy froze at that; Howie could see the wheels spinning as he mulled it over, then erupted into a wet laugh, slapping Howie on the back, since he couldn’t reach his shoulder without a ladder.

“Where’s the booze?” Howie asked, wondering if calling it booze was cool or not. His experience with alcohol was limited to — he counted in his head — exactly none.

“Kitchen,” the guy said, hooking a thumb in the direction of a wall. Howie figured he meant to point down the hall. “Get yourself loaded, brah.”

“Will do, brah.” And then Howie patted the adorable drunken linebacker on his head and pushed back into the hallway crowd.

Making his way down the hallway wasn’t easy, but there was plenty to observe on the way, so he didn’t mind. He was enormously grateful to whomever invented Halloween and decreed that women should wear the skimpiest costumes possible. The party was a press of flesh, exposed flesh in every direction. There were literal and figurative sex kittens everywhere he looked. If not for the very real sensation of blood flowing one place in particular, he might have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

Being a ten-thousand-foot-tall string bean who wasn’t allowed to play sports did not make for the most exhilarating of social lives, and yet nature had given him some forms of compensation. Though his freakish height could do him no good on a basketball court, his particularly elevated physique gave him the perfect vantage point from which to scope out cleavage canyons. And from that height, at that angle, it was tough for girls to tell that's what he was doing. So, score one for being a freak of nature.

He was halfway down the hall and frustratingly stalled when he noticed a girl off to one side, listlessly thumbing her cell phone while gnawing on a straw jutting from her red plastic cup. She had two little horns poking through her tawny hair and wore what looked like a skimpy leather bra, incredibly tight shorts, and the kind of thigh-high boots that make a woman’s legs look a mile long. Just the way Howie liked them. Better yet, she was a little taller than the average girl. Howie noticed these things. He had to.

Since he was stuck there and since she was right in front of him and since she was wearing very little, he decided to fall in love.

“Hi, there,” he said.

Nothing. She kept scrolling the cell.

He cleared his throat and projected over the music. “Hi, there!”

Startled, she almost dropped the phone. She looked up…and up…and up, her chin pointing out adorably and sexily, just asking to be nibbled by, say, a really tall hemophiliac.

“Wow,” she said.

“I agree. Wow is pretty much the right word.” He grinned at her, gazing down into her eyes, which sparkled green, then skipping the eyes because who cares about eyes? Down further, past that nibble-able chin and a throat that was begging to be licked was the Promised Land. Howie figured he could be happy for the rest of his life -- no matter how long or short that ended up being -- if he could shrink down and set up camp between her breasts. He would just live there all day long and roam those hills and he would be content.

"You're really tall," she said, still craning her neck to look into his eyes.

"Thank you for noticing. Most people don't."

"Do you play basketball?"

"I've been known to dribble a ball on occasion," he said with as much modesty as he could muster.

"Are you any good?"

"No one has ever scored on me, that's for sure."

"Wow."

“Again, we concur. Indeed. Wow."

"Where do you go to school?"

"Over in the Nod."

Her eyes widened. "Lobo's Nod? Where that serial killer guy lives?"

"Yep."

"Wow."

“And once more, you've managed to get right to the heart of the matter."

With a deep breath that caused her breasts to undulate like only breasts can undulate, she said, "Did you know him?"

Howie flicked a glance over his shoulder. From this angle, he could barely make out Jazz and Connie, standing just inside the living room. Jazz, channeling his inner statue, stood cross-armed as Connie chatted animatedly with a guy dressed as Captain America.

See that guy over there, the guy dressed like no one at all, the guy you'd never look at twice? That's my best friend and he's also Billy Dent's kid, so, yeah, you could say I know Billy.

He had a sudden blast of memory, almost overwhelming: The last time he'd seen Billy as a free man. He'd gone over to Jazz's house to collaborate on a homework project. And by collaborate, he meant crack jokes while Jazz did most of the work. Billy had answered the door, his eyes lighting up when he saw Howie.

C'mon in, Howie, Billy had chortled. You eaten dinner yet? I figure all stretched out like that, your belly probably don't know your mouth's eaten for an hour or so. Want some barbecue? Just grilled up some for me'n'Jasper and there's plenty left over. Got rolls on the kitchen counter.

And, yeah, Howie had been hungry, and he'd eaten Billy's barbecue which was, to this day, the best he'd ever eaten. And a week later, Jazz hadn't come to school one day and in the middle of third period cellphones had started buzzing with the news that Billy Dent was under arrest.

It was a total memory. A full-body memory. The fill of the barbecue. Billy's strong hand on Howie's side, guiding him into the house, to the kitchen, gentle, always remembering Howie's hemophilia. The buzz of the cell in his pocket.

"I saw him around," Howie said, shaking himself back into the present, the girl's eyes still searching him. "Spoke to him a few times."

"Wow." She shivered. "Could you tell? Could you tell there was something wrong with him?"

The truth? The truth was no way in hell. Billy Dent's human disguise was the best Halloween costume of all time. He wore it year-round and no one ever figured out who and what lurked beneath the mask until it was way too late.

"Totally," Howie said. "I could tell. There was always just something off about him, you know?"

She nodded as though she, too, had brushed up against the lunacy that walked like a man.

"So," he said, pressing his advantage, "what are you dressed as? Or not dressed as, as the case may be."

"I'm a sexy kid."

"That you are, but what are you dressed as?"

She laughed and shoved him, hard, in his ribs. Contact. According to all the men’s dating advice web sites, that was a buy sign. Joy.

"A kid. Like, a baby goat." She gestured down her body, an invitation Howie was glad to accept. Indeed, her skimpy bra was fringed with fur, as were her tiny, tight shorts, and the tops of her thigh-high boots. Those same boots had been modified with blunt hooves and there were those horns in her hair.

"I get it now," he said. "You're the sexiest sexy kid I've ever seen. Well done. I applaud you.” He slapped his ginormous hands together. No little golf clap, either — he gave her a full-on ovation.

She giggled and smacked his arm playfully. More contact. Nice.

"Are you, like, a zombie or something?" she asked.

"More like 'or something,' like," he said, mimicking her tone. "Zombies are so over, you know? Dead both literally and figuratively."

She gazed up at him for a long moment. “Then what are you?”

"I'm Blood Boy," Howie announced, planting his fists on his hips and striking a super-hero pose. "My power is to bleed on you."

She tittered. "Okay, now I get it."

"That makes one of us," he said. "Can I get you a drink?"

She looked down at the drink in her hand. "I already have one."

"I could get you another one," he pointed out.

With a sly grin, she shook her head. "How do I know you wouldn't put something in it?"

Howie snorted at the very idea. "Please. Roofies are for amateurs. For men who have not mastered the art of seduction. I'm all about the consensual action. Emphasis on sensual."

She licked her lips and Howie knew -- based on what he'd read on the Internet -- that he had her.

"Well, maybe one drink."

"Excellent. And just so you know," he said gravely, gesturing down toward his groin, "everything is in proportion."

"Gross."

"Maybe so," he conceded. "Not all women can handle it."

Maybe he'd gone too far...but maybe not. She showed no signs of leaving, and she was touching her hair, which he was pretty sure was another buy sign.

"Is that true?"

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"Of course. Would I lie to you?"

"There's no point lying. I'm not sleeping with you or anything. We just met."

Howie feigned outrage and shock. "Well, I never! I'll have you know that I don't plan on sleeping with you either. No matter how much you beg."

She laughed once more. He was on a roll.

"Let me go get you a drink. What are you having?"

She tucked the straw between her lips and looked up at him with very wide eyes that made his shorts less baggy. "Surprise me."

Howie wasted no time. He redoubled his efforts to get to the kitchen, now pushing people out of his way, getting jostled in return. Someone stepped on his foot — tough to miss landing on those giants — and slurringly apologized. Brushing the guy off, Howie hustled to the drinks. He had to get back to Sexy Kid before she changed her mind or got snatched up by some less deserving mope; he didn’t have time for apologies.

The kitchen opened from the hallway, its bright overheads assailing his eyes after the dim lighting in the hallway. He took a moment to get his bearings. A sexy nurse and a sexy stormtrooper and a sexy zombie were gathered in a corner. The word foursome popped into Howie’s head for a moment — especially when the sexy zombie gave him a quick up-and-down with her eyes — but he reminded himself that he was in love with the Sexy Kid. For now, at least.

The kitchen was a shambles, its granite counters covered with the dust of a thousand chips and pretzels, its floor sticky in a way Howie didn’t want to understand. A butcher block island stood in the middle of the room, its top a series overlapping moisture rings that peeked out between bottles of alcohol and a fallen-over stack of infamous red plastic cups.

There was a cooler of beers on the floor, too, but he ignored them. Beer seemed plebeian and unsophisticated to him. Plus, Sexy Kid had been drinking something clear-ish through her straw. He didn’t want to insult her and betray his lack of imagination by bringing back a bottle of what his dad called “piss-water.”

He stood at the island-cum-bar, thinking. He knew nothing at all about alcohol. But he knew there was such a thing as mixed drinks and that meant you had to, well, mix drinks, right?

He flipped two cups right-side-up and poured some gin into each. There were helpful grooves around the circumference of the cups, so he used them to keep things even, dumping in vodka and then some orange juice and then some cranberry juice and then some Sprite and then a different kind of vodka because why not? There must be a reason for different kinds of vodka, right?

There were no spoons or utensils, so he stirred the drinks with his absurdly long index finger. Licked it off.

His tongue went momentarily numb, then cold, then hot. He figured that couldn’t be a bad sign.

Back out in the hallway, Sexy Kid was once again flicking through her cell. Howie held the drinks up near the ceiling and grunted and cursed his way through the crowd. Something hard banged his knee — some idiot dressed as a samurai had an actual sword.

“Hi. Remember me?” He held out one of the drinks to her.

“Blood Boy.” Her nose wrinkled when she smiled. It distracted Howie from her cleavage for a good two to three picoseconds. He decided that if he couldn’t set up camp down in there that he would settle for diving between them, face-down. “Welcome back.”

She took the proffered cup and dipped her straw in it. Sucked. “What the hell?” She coughed, her eyes watering. “You’re trying to get me wasted.”

“No! No!” He held out his own cup. “They’re both the same. Honest.”

She sipped from his cup and coughed again, though this time with the brevity of someone who had steeled herself. “Jesus. What is this?”

“A little concoction of my own. I call it ‘Howie’s Reward.’”

“What’s the reward?”

For once in his life, Howie let his lips speak without his tongue — he smiled at her.

*****

HOWIE LED THE WAY as they backtracked along the hall to the foyer, then made their way up the stairs. Someone slurred, “Hey! No one allowed up there!” to which Howie replied, “Great, thanks! We won’t go!” and kept heading up.

“Really! Bobby’ll be pissed!” the other guys shouted. “Check it!” He gestured to a sign hung on the railing, which read “NO ONE UPSTAIRS!!!”

“Thanks for the info,” Howie called. “Really appreciate it!”

Sexy Kid squeezed his hand tightly, almost urgently. He waved another thanks to the slurring, annoyed guy and guided her further up the stairs. Together, they found a door that opened into a princess-pink asylum of frill, lace, and accents of purple.

“It’s like the bedroom of my dreams,” Howie intoned with deathly seriousness.

Sexy Kid giggled and dragged him inside, shutting the door behind them. The lights were off, a little illumination from outdoor floodlights casting shadows over her. Her eyes seemed larger in this light, her breasts more fulsome, if that was even possible. She went up on tiptoe and Howie stooped and their noses banged into each other.

“This isn’t gonna work,” she muttered, and before Howie could alarmingly and desperately beg to disagree, she shoved at him, guiding him to sit on the floor, his back against a truly adorable four-poster bed bedecked with princesses and cartoon animals.

“Better,” she said, standing over him, then dropping to her knees. Their faces were even and she leaned in close. Howie had stopped breathing.

“Remember,” she said, scrutinizing him, studying his face, his eyes, “I’m not sleeping with you.”

Howie bobbed his head in enthusiastic understanding. “I’m not tired anyway.”

“God, you’re adorable.” She smashed her lips to his and they were off. Her tongue was a marvel of whatever it was tongues were made of. Howie groaned into her as they kissed. She leaned into him further, pressing against him, resting in a straddle across his lap that was the closest thing he’d had to a religious experience in his life.

She spent what seemed like three hours sucking on his neck, just above the clavicle, and for that space of time, it felt as though every nerve and blood vessel in his body routed through that spot.

He ran his hands up her bare side, from the top of the shorts to the bottom of the bra. The fake goat fur tickled his fingertips.

“No,” she said as he tugged at the clasp.

“Please.” Howie didn’t want to beg, but he would. He knew that he would die if he came this close to the Promised Land and never got to glimpse the mountains. “I’m just concerned. A recent Scientific American report indicated that breasts enclosed in leather and fur for extended periods of time need vigorous massaging to prevent—”

She interrupted him, which was good, since he had no idea where he was headed. Tossing her hair back, she grinned at him saucily and sat up, reaching back. “Well, in that case…”

“I love that you just needed an excuse.”

Her shoulders flexed and the bra dropped and Howie’s widened and he moved his hands and suddenly the door banged open and the light came on, burning the glorious sight before him into his brain in the split second it took for Sexy Kid to shriek and tug the bra back over her God-given delights.

“Ocupado, amigo!” Howie yelled, shielding his dark-adjusted eyes from the light. “Find your own tween purgatory!”

“Hey, asshole!” a voice called, and then a foot kicked him squarely above the ankle. Sexy Kid rolled to one side, sliding off of him, holding her bra up with one hand while trying to re-clasp it with the other.

Standing before them was a largish guy with spiky brown hair, gelled to manga-esque proportions, wearing a karate gi that could only be described as vigorously formfitting. Howie figured that, if called upon to do so in a court of law, he could confidently attest that the kid was circumcised.

“You must be Bobby,” Howie said.

“What part of ‘No one upstairs’ do you not understand?” Bobby demanded.

Howie unfurled himself from the floor, rising to tower over the kid. He flexed his fingers, not quite making fists. “Is this getting physical?” Howie asked, genuinely curious.

“Hey, man,” the kid said, stammering just the slightest bit as Howie loomed from eight miles up. “Look, there’s no need for a hassle. This is my kid sister’s room. Come on. Be cool.”

“I am so cool, I bleed antifreeze,” Howie said. “I am so cool, my snot is icicles.” He checked over his shoulder to see if his combination of physical intimidation and hilarious rap were helping to loosen Sexy Kid’s panties.

But she was gone.

“Aw, man!” he complained.

“There’s the whole basement,” Bobby was saying, “and the garage has a sofa and—”

“I’m outta here, dude.”

*****

HOWIE POKED HIS HEAD in a couple of the other doors upstairs, finding nothing, then made his way back downstairs. Fortunately, his height advantage made it easy to look for Sexy Kid. He pressed his way back to the kitchen, into a den, onto a back porch. Down into the basement and into the garage, where, indeed, there was a sofa, occupied by two couples, blissfully groping each other without paying any mind to each other. Howie watched for a moment, then returned to the house, making a complete circuit of it one more time. He came up empty-handed.

Eventually, he made his way back to Jazz and Connie. Jazz, from all appearances, hadn’t moved an inch all night. Connie arched an eyebrow at Howie as he approached.

“We were just talking about you.”

“I believe it. I’m an endlessly fascinating subject.” Howie craned his neck, peering into the darkest corners of the living room for Sexy Kid.

“We were just saying that if you didn’t show up soon, Jazz would have to leave without you. And then I’d get stuck taking you home.”

A quick scroll of his cell blew Howie’s mind. It was much, much later than he’d thought. “Yeah…” he mumbled. “I guess we should get going.” He bent to look behind the sofa. Just in case.

“Missing something?” Jazz asked.

Howie sighed heavily. “Guess not.”

*****

OUTSIDE, HOWIE LOITERED NEAR the Jeep while Connie and Jazz muttered to each other, ending with a peck on the lips that lingered just long enough for Howie to think of Sexy Kid’s lips on his own. Connie got into the car she’d borrowed from her dad and pulled away; Jazz walked over to the Jeep.

“Ready?”

“Yep.”

They were silent the whole way home. Jazz’s reticence was as per usual; Howie’s was not. The Jeep had probably never been so silent since Billy had used it, watching and waiting patiently for some poor future victim to cluelessly cross his path.

“Why so morose?” Jazz asked as he pulled into his driveway, parking next to Howie’s car.

“Is that an SAT word?”

“Tell me.”

“Could you use it in a sentence?”

“I did.”

“This is true.”

“Why. So. Morose?”

Howie shrugged. “Can we just say I saw the face of God tonight and didn’t get to touch it and leave it at that?”

“I suppose.”

They climbed out of the Jeep together. As Howie unlocked his car, Jazz called over the hood of the Jeep: “Hey. Why did I have to drive all the way out to Tynan Ridge again? And don’t give me this ‘I wanted a new crowd’ crap.”

Howie opened the door and leaned against it, thoughtful. “Okay, the truth? The truth is, I wanted to get you somewhere where not everyone knew you. Where you could loosen up a bit. Nice job on that, by the way.”

Shaking his head, Jazz said, “I don’t believe you. I think you wanted somewhere where no one knew you. Where no one would treat you differently because of your disease. Where no one would treat you like you could break, like you’re made of spun sugar.”

Howie clucked his tongue. “Spun sugar? You have a way with words, Jazz. Truly. Quite the fecund imagination.”

“Is that an SAT word?”

Howie shrugged. “Imagination? Nah.” He flashed a quick grin and — before Jazz could say anything — slid into the car, slammed the door, and gunned the engine.

*****

DAD WAS ASLEEP WHEN he got home, but Mom — of course — lay on the sofa in her robe and slippers, watching something on Lifetime, some movie about a woman done wrong by a man. That was the sum total of Lifetime, as best Howie could tell: Women done wrong by men.

“How was the party?” she asked as casually as the constraints of Mom-dom allowed.

“Great,” he said. And for once, he wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.

“Did you drink? Because your liver—”

“Mom. No. I’m not an idiot.” He’d never gotten a chance to sample Howie’s Reward, he realized. Either of them.

She clicked off the TV and stood, yawning. “Wash all of that stuff off before you go to bed. I’m not buying new sheets just because you got makeup on them.”

He watched her toddle sleepily off to bed, then ducked into the bathroom. Blood Boy stared back at him from the mirror.

“First base isn’t bad,” he whispered to the mirror. “There’s always next year.”

He climbed into the shower — careful not to bang his head against the curtain rod — and cranked up the hot water. In a cloud of steam, he luxuriated for a few minutes, just enjoying the sensation. Then he washed off the fake blood, watching it spiral as pink as Bobby’s kid sister’s bedroom down the drain.

With the blood off, he scrubbed at the mottled bruise makeup, lifting it off his skin, revealing further, deeper mottling beneath, as though he’d never removed the makeup.

Out of the shower, he gazed down at his ridiculously long body, then looked up in the mirror, twisting.

An almost perfect circle of black-and-blue at the small of his back, where he’d jammed against the doorknob.

A bruise under his ribs, where he’d been jabbed by some random guy.

Another bruise, higher up on his back, where he’d been slapped with bonhomie by the human garbage bag.

Another one along his ribs and one on his arm, from his flirting with Sexy Kid in the hallway.

A big one on his foot, when someone had stepped on it. And along the side of his knee, from that damn samurai sword.

His neck, a massive contusion bloom from the pressure of Sexy Kid’s insistent and glorious lips.

His left hand, where Sexy Kid had squeezed it tight while following him up the stairs.

His lips, from her own.

His nose, as they banged together.

Bobby’s kick to his ankle.

He stared at the image in the mirror, at the horror show of burst blood vessels and subcutaneous bleeds all over his body.

And then he grinned at his reflection and whispered, as though a secret, “Worth it.”

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story, like the other I Hunt Killers prequels, grew out of a very natural process. When I started writing the books, I knew that the “present” of the story took place four years after the notorious Billy Dent had been arrested, tried, and convicted. Furthermore, I knew that Billy’s “career” stretched back twenty years, longer than his son had been alive.

This meant that I had a lot of backstory in my head and in my notes as I wrote. Some of it leaked out in dribs and drabs over the course of the trilogy.

Now, one thing authors have to drum into their heads early on is this: Backstory is not story! We have a tendency to fall in love with our backstories, which oftentimes leads to terminally dull prologues or extended, boring flashback sequences. It’s easy to forget that the audience cares about the story, not the backstory.

But when it came to I Hunt Killers, there were bits and pieces of the backstory that I thought would be of interest to readers…as long as they didn’t interfere with the action in the story itself. How did Jazz get his nickname? How did Jazz and Connie fall in love, given the circumstances? These were the sorts of character-driven backstory elements that I thought readers might enjoy.

My solution? This story you’ve downloaded, as well as some others. I hope you agree that they were worth the time!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Called a “YA rebel-author” by Kirkus Reviews, Barry Lyga has published novels in various genres in his career, including the New York Times bestselling I Hunt Killers. His books have been or are slated to be published in a dozen different languages in North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia.

After graduating from Yale with a degree in English, Lyga worked in the comic book industry before quitting to pursue his lifelong love of writing. In 2006, his first young adult novel, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, was published to rave reviews, including starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal. Publishers Weekly named Lyga a “Flying Start” in December 2006 on the strength of the debut.

His second young adult novel, Boy Toy, received starred reviews in SLJ, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus. VOYA gave it its highest critical rating, and the Chicago Tribune called it “…an astounding portrayal of what it is like to be the young male victim.” His third novel, Hero-Type, according to VOYA “proves that there are still fresh ideas and new, interesting story lines to be explored in young adult literature.”

Since then, he has also written Goth Girl Rising (the sequel to his first novel), as well as the Archvillain series for middle-grade readers, the graphic novel Mangaman (with art by Colleen Doran), the I Hunt Killers series, and the (very) adult novel, Unsoul’d.

Lyga lives and writes in New York City. His comic book collection is a lot smaller than it used to be, but is still way too big.

For more information, visit barrylyga.com. And/or sign up for the very low-volume Barry Lyga Newsletter.

ALSO BY BARRY LYGA

If you enjoyed “Blood Boy,” you might also enjoy these other books by Barry Lyga:

The I Hunt Killers Series

Jazz is the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, "Take Your Son to Work Day" was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminals' point of view.

In an effort to prove murder doesn't run in the family, Jazz joins the police in the hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret — could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

A riveting series about a teenager trying to control his own destiny in the face of overwhelming odds.

- I Hunt Killers
- Game
- Blood of My Blood

- Lucky Day (prequel novella)
- “Career Day” (prequel novella)
- “Neutral Mask” (prequel short story)

The Brookdale Books

Controversial. Award-winning. Critically acclaimed. From a comic book geek meeting the girl of his nightmares to a baseball star with a shameful secret to small-town politics to a girl figuring out how to be a woman, the Brookdale Books form an “unseries” of loosely linked stories that “proves that there are still fresh ideas and new, interesting story lines to be explored in young adult literature” (VOYA).

- The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl

- Boy Toy
- Hero-Type
- Goth Girl Rising

Unsoul’d

“That day, I had a bagel for breakfast and sold my soul to the devil. In retrospect, the bagel was probably a mistake.”

Randall Banner is thirty-five years old, a middling mid-list author who yearns for more of everything: More attention. More fame. More money. More fans.

Then, one quiet morning, he meets the devil while pounding away at his laptop at his usual coffee shop. Soon, a deal is made, a contract is signed, and Randall is on his way to fame and fortune unlike any he ever imagined.

What follows is a bawdy, hilarious, yet harrowing tale of one man, one devil, and a deal that could change the world.

"Like Nick Hornby writing an episode of Californication!" — Sarah Maclean, New York Times bestselling author.

BACK MATTER/CREDITS

Copyright © 2014 Barry Lyga LLC

All Rights Reserved

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