by Drew Hayes
I’m not proud of how long it took, but that was when it finally dawned on me that Lillian didn’t actually care if Colin died or not. Somewhere in the discussion, he’d become inconsequential. What she was interested in was me, or rather, if I could stop her from killing him. This was a game to her. Brains or brawn, she wanted to see what I was made of. Knowing that, I realized I only had one move left. I needed to go for a high stakes gambit.
“I guess I can’t stop you,” I told her, but even as I spoke, I began to back away. “Just, give me a few seconds to get clear first. I really don’t want to be close enough to see what happens to you.”
Her brow creased. This was not a method she’d been anticipating, because why on earth would she? It didn’t really make sense, but if I shuffled the facts around fast enough, she might not notice that.
“What do you expect to happen? The hunter is down. I would easily sense if he’d awakened.”
“Oh yeah, Colin looks down for the count. In fact, I think he needs some serious medical attention. But see, nuts as that hunter is, he’s also shown himself to be really smart. He found out what I was by staking out my blood supply. He took away my car and communication before anything else. When I ran, he kept finding me, and I still have no idea how he pulled that off. Not to mention his weapons. Silver, fire, all the classics, plus some ingenious stuff of his own.” I tapped lightly on the hook sticking out of my chest to illustrate the point.
“I’m sure he was quite formidable, before I cracked him in the back of the head,” Lillian said. Her brow was still creased, but she was starting to grow impatient. She thought I was stalling for time, instead of building up to something.
“Formidable, and suicidal,” I corrected. “No concern for his own well-being what-so-ever. If I weren’t . . . me . . . then there were several chances I could have used to kill him tonight. Tell me, someone like that—someone cunning and informed, with very little sense of self-preservation—doesn’t that seem like the kind of man who would booby trap his own blood, just in case he lost? One last ‘screw you’ to the vampire that brought him down?”
That got her attention. She looked from me to Colin, to the blood slowly streaming from his forehead. “Silver is poisonous to humans as well.”
“Not right away. They can have a lot of it in their system before it does them in. There would be long-term side effects, but that only matters for someone who expects to live through the year. And it wouldn’t take much to hurt a vampire, especially from the inside.” It took everything I had not to fidget, or break our eye contact, or give any other indication of just how full of shit I was. I had no idea how long a human could last with silver in their body, or what amount of it would get to the blood, or how it would impact a vampire who drank it. This was all speculation and conjecture, which is a nicer way of saying a complete wild guess. It was all I had, though.
My only hope—actually, Colin’s only hope—was that Lillian didn’t know any more about the subject than I did. She contemplated him again for a while, then walked over to me, moving slowly until she was only inches away.
“Fredrick Fletcher, you are an interesting one.” Reaching out, she took the hook poking through my chest and snapped it clean off, almost effortlessly. I’d love to say the bend loosened it for her, but the implication was clear. She’d been partaking in more blood, probably even that of other parahumans, and was much stronger than I was. That’s the most dangerous thing about vampires—when we drink the blood of other parahumans, we absorb part of their ability. The strength and regeneration of therians is apparently a popular favorite, and the exact reason why so many of Richard’s staff look at me with distrust.
“Congratulations, Fredrick. You have saved this hunter’s life. I have no claim to kill him unless I am feeding, and you make the proposition of ingesting his blood a bit more than I’d like to gamble. That said, this sort of behavior cannot go unpunished.” Lillian walked back over to Colin, the hook of the harpoon clutched tightly in her hand. Her foot flipped him over, pointing his unconscious face toward the sky. Dragging the blade of the harpoon forcefully across her skin, she opened a small cut on her palm.
I realized what she was about to do only seconds before it happened, and by then, I was already too late. Lillian crouched down and pulled open Colin’s mouth, letting a few drops of her blood fall into his throat. That done, she carefully lowered his head back to the ground and looked up at me.
“Did . . . did you just make him a vampire?”
Lillian snorted, and as soon as she did, her eyes widened again. It was a brief moment, but it helped dispel a lot of the tension in the air. She’d slipped for a moment, letting me see that at least some of this “creature of the night” routine was for show. But the snort was gone, her face solemn again, and I chose to let the incident pass without comment.
“Fredrick, you really need to learn more about your own people. A vampire must drink a human’s blood, then give them some of their own in order for the change to occur. What I have offered is nothing more than a bit of magical booster, something to speed his healing along. Of course, if he does have silver in his system, that healing will be quite the painful experience. But he’ll survive, and be none the worse for wear. Eventually.”
Then she was up again, stepping over Colin and walking past me. From her pocket, she produced a small phone, one a bit sleeker than what I’d lost. Moving her thumb at exceptional speed, she clicked through several menus, tapped a few digital buttons, and offered the phone to me. “Something tells me you need this more than I do.”
“Thanks. Let me just look up the number and make a quick call—”
Lillian was already walking off though, shaking her head as she did. “Keep it; I’m due for an upgrade anyway. Plus, I wiped all the personal information. It’s yours now, for as long as you like.” She stopped, partway out of the alley, and looked out at the city of Winslow.
“You know, Fred, there are some interesting tales coming out of this city. Stories about one of our kind who’s like no other. They say he brokered a peace with the therians, courted an agent, and that even the King of the West calls him by name. Part of why my clan has come is to try and broker a meeting with him, if he even truly exists. Should we succeed, I’ll text that phone, perhaps even make an introduction. Someone like you could learn a lot from that sort of vampire.”
Then she was gone—well, from the alley at least—but her words lingered long after her, even as I looked up the number for Charlotte Manor and finally called my friends. People were telling stories about me? And not only that, they were getting all the details screwed up. My stomach twisted into a bundle of nerves, though I was technically out of harm’s way, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
After several years as a vampire, I was finally beginning to get a sense of when there was trouble on the horizon.
7.
“Well, the bad news is that your car is going to need some serious work. It looks like Colin punched out a window and shot the engine when you ran off, which isn’t surprising given the rage issues. Good news is that Bubba knows more than a few trustworthy mechanics, and the Agency is going to create an accident report where you aren’t at fault for your insurance company.” Krystal walked into the room, classically decorated and far from her style, not even pausing to kick off her boots before she dropped into bed next to me.
It hadn’t taken long after the call for Krystal to show up, along with Bubba, Richard, and Amy all packed into her truck. Arch drove his own car—a surprisingly well-maintained Cadillac that was easily older than anyone other than its driver. They’d managed to arrive quickly, but not quite before Colin had woken up screaming. As it turned out, my insane theory had actually panned out, and Colin had been putting silver in his bloodstream. Amy assured me that, with vampire blood in his system, he’d make a full recovery, but the next few hours would be tough. Not even she could lessen the pain, however, since silver would work against her magic as well.
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nbsp; After that, things sort of became a blur. Arch took Colin into custody, shoving him in the back of the Cadillac after cuffing him; though, with how much pain the hunter was in, the cuffs might have been unnecessary. The rest of the harpoon was yanked out of me, and I was brought back to Charlotte Manor, where Albert, Neil, and Sally were all waiting. Charlotte slipped a glass of wine into my hand the moment I entered, and I said a silent prayer of thanks for the hospitality of the possessed house. The rest of the gang went to my apartment, apparently sweeping it for traps, of which they found a few, and getting my car towed out of the street.
I don’t know how much time passed before Krystal returned, giving me a packet of blood from my fridge—silver free, she assured me—and escorting me up to her new room. There hadn’t even been time to unpack yet, so it felt oddly foreign. Part of me wished for the familiarity of my own home, or even Krystal’s old apartment, but that sentiment faded as soon as I remembered that I was probably in the safest spot in all of Winslow. Once that hit home, I sucked down my blood and simply took the news as it rolled in. The car was the latest bit, the last of the truly pragmatic stuff, and as Krystal sank deeper into the cushy mattress, I turned over to meet her gaze.
“What’s going to happen to Colin?”
“Depends on Colin,” Krystal said. “From what we’ve been able to dig up so far, the guy lost his family to a vampire attack a few weeks back. Watched everyone die, but managed to drive a silver knife into the head of his attacker when it was his turn to go. His prints matched the ones at a scene we’d been trying to figure out for a while. Anyway, seeing that kind of shit will drive most people off the edge, and he’s no exception.”
She reached over, gently touching the part of my shoulder where the harpoon had burst through. There was no scar to mark it; in fact, if not for the torn shirt and sweater vest, it would have been impossible to tell that anything had ever happened.
“He’s not bad, though. Got a natural talent for this sort of stuff. Never seen someone try to carpoon a vampire before.”
“How long you been waiting to use that?” I asked.
“Hours. Had to make sure you were okay first, or it would have been in bad taste.” She grinned, but we’d been together long enough that I could see the worry behind her smile. I’d been in trouble tonight, and she wasn’t there to protect me. I imagined that was a hard pill to swallow, especially for an agent.
“Anyway, if Colin can be reformed, taught to understand that not all parahumans are bad, then maybe he could work off some of his time with the Agency. If he can’t, then the cops are going to easily locate the dude who shot up a gas station, carjacked a taxi, and I’m sure pulled off a lot of other illegal stuff on other nights.”
“What if he tells people about vampires?” I asked.
“Let him. He’s not the first, and he won’t be the last. Prisons have psych wards too these days.” Krystal let go of my shoulder, wrapped her hand around my torso, and tapped me gently on the back. “Have to put him in a good one though. He’s crafty. Did you know there was a GPS tracker on your back? Stuck right into your sweater vest.”
My mind drifted back to when I was first running away, after the silver bullet failed to stop me. I remembered those next few shots. Loud, but not nearly as powerful. I’d taken them to be normal bullets at the time, but a small tracker made a lot more sense.
“Guess that’s one mystery solved. I was wondering how he kept finding me.” On the subject of being found, my brain lit up with a sudden rush of forgotten concern. “Oh crap, Dr. Huerta, is he okay?”
“He’s alive, and Amy is already talking with a few other local mages to get him fixed all the way up. They can even take away the memory, along with the rest of today, but so far he’s been refusing it. Also . . . I think Dr. Huerta is done with the blood trade,” Krystal said.
“Yeah. I sort of expected as much.” A white business card was suddenly a few inches from my nose, clutched in Krystal’s slender fingers. “What’s this?”
“You’re not the only vampire that prefers take-out. The Agency set up vendors centuries ago, ones who only buy blood at a fair rate. I never mentioned it, since they’re a bit pricier than what your guy was charging, but it seems pretty relevant as things stand. And they have a speedy delivery option.” She shook the card in front of me several more times, until I finally reached up and pulled it from her hand.
“They’re Agency-approved?”
“It’s better to say we keep an eye on them, and they know it,” Krystal replied. “They probably fudge a lot of paperwork here and there, but they’re smart enough not to try any big stuff. That one has a particularly good reputation. I asked around, in case it ever came up.”
“Thank you.” I slipped the card into my wallet, making a note to call them tomorrow. After I’d gotten a new phone. Much as I appreciated the assistance, I wasn’t sure I wanted to use a device that someone else had had such recent access to. It seemed senselessly dangerous. I put the wallet away and pulled out the phone, prompting a bit of throat-clearing from Krystal.
“So . . . about the vampire who helped you.”
“Lillian,” I said. “She said she was here for a meeting with the therians. I assume that means Richard.”
“Right. Well, we ran it down, and that part is mostly true. She’s part of a vampire clan that’s petitioning to meet with Richard. They want to move into town, but since Winslow is home to a lot of powerful therians, their badass leader, and the King of the West, coming in without at least an introduction would be a dicey proposal.”
“Let me guess, I only got away with it because I never hunted and kept my head down?”
“More or less,” Krystal said. “These things matter more with people who make a lot of waves, of which you are not one. Plus, you’re just one vampire. If therians see a whole clan suddenly appear without warning, they’re likely to think that the vampires are up to something. Maybe even an invasion to wrest control of the city. They tend to deal with those threats fast and hard.”
“Sort of encouraging that they want to go through proper channels, then,” I told her.
“We’ll see what we see.” Krystal shrugged, as if we were talking about whether our pizza would come with the proper toppings. It was hard to blame Krystal, though. While it seemed like a very dangerous situation to me, for her it likely wasn’t even a blip on the radar. I never dug too deep into what it was to be an agent, but the few glimpses I’d seen had left me with an appreciation for the scope of their duties, and their abilities.
“Lillian said there was another reason they wanted to talk with Richard.” I spoke carefully, not quite sure how best to broach this subject. In truth, I was still wrapping my own head around it, trying to convince myself that there was something I’d misunderstood. “She said they’d heard tales about a vampire who lived here. One who was on good terms with the therians, and dating an agent. Who was even not hated by the King of the West. I’m . . . I’m not crazy, am I? They’re talking about me.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then leaned in and kissed me gently on the forehead. “Yes and no, Freddy. Yes, parahumans love to talk—actually, who I am kidding, they love to gossip. But you know how those things go. Someone tells the story of catching a big fish, they leave out the hours of failure and trying different baits before the final success and cut right to the triumph. People chop the stories down to the interesting bits, pulling out the context. And without that context, some of the friendships you’ve made and things you’ve accomplished can seem almost inexplicable. So yes, the stories are about you in the sense that you have done those things, but no, they’re not about the Freddy that we all know and love. Did she even realize you were the one she wanted to meet?”
“Not in the slightest,” I replied. “In fact, she said someone like me could learn a lot from a vampire like that.”
“See, there you go. A few rumors flying around, but nothing to worry about. Kind of fun, in a way.” She reached up and po
ked my glasses, an affectation of familiarity and comfort rather than necessity. “You’re your own Clark Kent.”
“Except that my Superman is made up of gossip and mis-told stories,” I pointed out.
“And you don’t have the cape,” Krystal added.
“Whew, so you didn’t search my closet that carefully.” It was a joke, but Krystal’s smile faded a bit.
“About that, Freddy. You can’t go home for a few days,” she said. “Amy and I found more than a couple of booby traps in your apartment. Now, we’re both good, but given how resourceful Colin was, we decided it was safer to get the whole place professionally swept. Not to mention, anything we find might help us figure out who else Colin has attacked. Anyway, the long and short of it is that, for the next few days, your place is a crime scene.”
“That’s more than a little inconvenient.” I flipped back over, looking at the wallpapered ceiling. “At least I can get a room from Charlotte.”
“Ooooooor . . .” Krystal drew out the word as she laid her head on my shoulder, the one not stained with blood. “We could take a vacation. Sort of. Arch needs to borrow Albert and Neil for something, but I’ve got vacation time saved up. What do you say we tag along? Get out of town for a little bit, let everything get settled.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that this ‘vacation’ will just end with more peril, if Arch is taking Neil and Albert somewhere,” I told her.
“It’s not like that. This is networking. Arch thinks they’d do well to meet someone else who wields a weapon of destiny. No crimes need solving, no monsters need slaying. And if they did, the sheriff is more than capable of handling it.”