The number said private. I hoped it wasn’t a bill collector because even though I had a fair amount of money, I couldn’t put it in my bank because I didn’t have a job and if anyone investigated me it would look suspicious. Paying bills seemed like such a normal, mortal thing to do and I wasn’t a normal mortal any more.
“Hello,” I said.
“Stephen, this is John. I need to speak with you. Meet me at Stanton Park in a half an hour.” Then he hung up.
I got up, put some clothes on, leashed up Diablo and left the house. Summer was in full swing and even though it was dark out, the air was so thick with humidity that it would have been easier to swim than to walk.
When we got there John was sitting on a park bench that was facing the direction we arrived from. With his vision he was able to see pretty far down Massachusetts Avenue. If he didn’t know where I lived before that meeting, he had narrowed it down to a pretty small area. He sat there until we got to him, not bothering to get up. I sat down on the far side from him leaving the middle of the bench open. As usual he was wearing a suit, dark blue with pinstripes and a light gray tie.
Diablo was at the full extent of her leash staying as far from John as she could get. Even though I’m bigger than John, he is far more intimidating. His cold eyes and an expressionless face were a poker player’s dream. It worked wonders in his line of work.
“Your dog appears to have an aversion to me,” he said.
“You’re kind of a scary guy,” I said.
“So I have been told. I guess a walking nightmare in a ten thousand dollar suit is still a nightmare,” he said.
“I think of myself more as a monster than a nightmare.”
“A monster? Perhaps you are. I am sure that Leanne Washington’s parents would agree with you. When I think of monsters, I think of Frankenstein with screws in his neck and a lot of single octave moaning. On the other hand, nightmares inspire absolute fear. Nightmares have existed since the dawn of time and so have we. Monsters tend to drool and get slain by torch bearing villagers. I encourage you to avoid both.”
“Nightmares aren’t real though.” Even though I meant it, at the same time I was questioning myself because until a few months ago I didn’t think that vampires existed either.
“It is better if the villagers think that we are not real either.”
“Fair enough. Have they ever found out that we are real?” This was a concern of mine because the pastor at the church obviously knew.
“From time to time. It never ends well for the mortals. The story of us is a perfect example of how fact becomes legend and then myth. There are stories of vampires that date back to the 13th century and some even before that in India. At some point everything that scares people becomes just another story to tell by the campfire. If one was to multiply a single story by a hundred it becomes myth. Basically it is a version of the children’s game called Telephone. Where one child says one thing to the next until the end and the message had changed. Generation after generation beating a story into fantasy because each version is more interesting and improved until the original is lost.”
We both looked around for a minute and watched the fresh-faced interns and the new college grads stumbling home from the bar after too many happy hour drinks. We were two eagles watching the unaware salmon swim upstream.
“I suppose I should be getting to the point of our meeting. The attack on my men was an attack on me personally. We both know that you showed everyone in my business that there are flaws in my security, and even though no mortal could have done what you were able to do, it made my rivals think I was someone who could be attacked. In my line of business I cannot afford to show weakness whether it is real or perceived. Given your money woes, I have an offer.”
I nodded.
“I want revenge but I need it to be done in a discreet manner. If I wanted to have a huge show of force I could pay a couple teams of hit men to go over there and turn their neighborhood into a battle field but then it would turn into an all out war and I don’t want to resort to that yet. It would be too costly and I would like to send a subtle message. Still interested?”
“Of course. Those guys at shot me too.”
“I forgot about that. You don’t seem to have any lasting effects.” Then he smiled.
I grinned. Vamp humor isn’t all that great but it was nice to have an inside joke.
“Okay. Be on the southwest corner of 8th and East Capitol Street tomorrow before midnight and I will send someone for you. He will tell you about our rivals and take you close to where they operate. You will have to find your own way home because I can’t have anyone be seen with you. As you may have heard the other night my men call me X and I expect you to do the same in their presence. How does $10,000 sound?”
“That works for me.”
He handed me an envelope that was solid and thick but the size didn’t come close to conveying how much money was in the envelope or what I was going to do to earn it.
“Do you want me to call you when it is over?” I asked.
“No. I’ll contact you when the time is right.”
I didn’t have any idea about how I would contact him if I wanted to, short of going and robbing his employees again.
The next night I was at the designated corner at midnight when a beat up old red Ford Taurus pulled up to the corner and stopped. The young black male driving the car waved me in. When I got in the car it smelled like old fast food and cheap cigars.
“You’re the guy who robbed Troy?” He said. I was a little offended his dismissive tone.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said.
“Yeah right. People on the block are wondering why you aren’t dead yet.”
“Yeah, me too. Tell me about where we are going and what my plan should be.”
I figured John wouldn’t want me talking to his employees any more than I had to.
I got out of the car with a little information about how their operation worked. I was out of my element, north of the Hill and near the dividing line between northeast and northwest.
The setup was simple, more or less like John’s, but because this other group had a higher volume of traffic and moved more product, they had more people and better security.
I put a ten-dollar bill in my coat pocket for easy access because the driver told me that the easiest way for me to the see the operation was to try to buy some drugs myself.
From down the block I watched a few transactions, then slowly walked up the street. Aside from the small area where they were selling drugs, I could have been anywhere in the city.
I walked up to the first guy and said, “Ten.”
In retrospect I realize that I’m an idiot. I clearly had no idea what I was doing.
My hand was on my money and was starting to pull it out when he said, “Ten what? What are you talking about? You a cop?”
“Do I look like a cop to you?” I said.
I could feel my fangs start to creep down, as he looked me up and down trying to figure out if I was actually a cop. My instinct was to kill this clown and move on but he was the absolute bottom of their supply chain and I was looking for someone a little more substantial.
“What do you want?”
“I need a fix.” I didn’t even know what a fix was but it sounded desperate enough.
He put out his hand and took the money. Then he made a hand signal to the guys at the end of the block. They stopped talking and turned to face me. For the first time since the gun fight, mortals were making me anxious. I wasn’t nervous about getting beat up or hurt because even though there were three of them, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could destroy them if I wanted to. My nerves were remnants from when I was a boy and I got picked on in a schoolyard. These guys looked down on me like these three guys at my elementary school. My older brother would protect me when he was around, but when he wasn’t there was a group of three boys who would call me a queer and make fun of me for ans
wering questions in class.
I started walking towards them and they headed right towards me. The streetlight made their faces hard to see because only one out of every four or five lights worked. What I could see though was startling.
The guy on the far left had a sneer on his face like my childhood nemesis Clay had. His sneer meant trouble. All of the times when I had my backpack taken off my back and thrown into the drainage ditch, every moment of having my face mashed into the gritty snow, when I felt like I was suffocating.
My fangs came out.
When the dealers were twenty feet from me, the demons that had been hidden in the past surged back. I knew now that everything had changed and there was nothing I could do to change it back. I was going to live forever and these chumps didn’t stand a chance. No one would ever pick on me again.
With a blur I flew at the guy with the sneer and pushed him as hard as I could. His feet left the ground and for a moment he was parallel to the ground. He made a weak attempt to grab on to my sleeves to catch himself as his arms came up but he missed. He bounced off of the side of a parked car and landed on the sidewalk in a heap.
The guy in the middle turned to react to me, I swung my open palm and hit him in the adam’s apple so hard that something popped. He fell to his knees with both hands on his throat, making a gurgling sound.
I turned on the last guy when the red and blue lights started flashing. There were two undercover cop cars converging on us from both sides of the street.
The last guy ran for it. I didn’t know if he was running from the police or me. Neither option was going to turn out well from him.
The first guy had pulled a gun while he was on the ground. I walked over to him at regular human speed. At that moment, I was sure that he couldn’t kill me with it and I wasn’t afraid. He fired and the bullet hit me in the left shoulder. The bullet burned my skin as it passed through, and while he may not be able to kill me, it still really hurt. I know how ridiculous it sounds now but with my newly developed God complex, I didn’t think that anything could hurt me.
The bullet knocked me off balance throwing my left side back. He shot again and the bullet buzzed past my left ear. I went over to him, reached down and grabbed his left ankle with my right hand. Then I pivoted my hips and swung him like you would swing a bat with one hand. We were close to a streetlight so when I swung him at the post he connected fully with his head. The sound was like dropping a watermelon off of a roof onto a metal table.
Before I could turn around there were two spotlights aimed at my back.
“Put your hands on your head,” said an authoritative voice over the loudspeaker.
I started to put my hands up slowly. I heard four car doors open behind me. My left shoulder hurt as I began to raise it but I could feel it mending slowly. It had that itchy feeling of skin trying to fix itself.
Looking at the wall, I had two shadows, one from each light. The light from each of the spotlights caused the other shadow to be a little lighter. I thought, now there are three of us, with our hands up but none of us are going to be put in cuffs.
“Down on your knees. Now!” said the voice.
I started to bend my knees for a moment like I was getting down. Then I turned to my left and ran, keeping my face turned away from them so that they couldn’t identify me. I was gone in an instant. They didn’t have a chance to chase me.
CHapter 14
I was wandering around H Street half-heartedly looking for a victim because I wanted to get my hands on fresh, younger blood instead of strays or people who were knocking on death’s door. Whenever I thought about killing someone young, the news stories with Leanne’s mom crying on TV about their murdered daughter popped into my head.
I had found someone to stalk when my cell phone vibrated and scared the shit out of me. The number came up as private, which made me uneasy. Who was calling me and what did they have to hide? I was tired of private calls so I decided not to answer and sent the call straight to voicemail.
As I was trying to regain my composure, my former coworker Megan came out of a group she was standing in and gave me a running hug.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey you.” she said. “How’s life and such?” She was drunk and her words were all pouring out at the same time with no pauses between them. “I’m out with these people over here.” She pointed at the group she was with and teeter-tottered from her heels to the balls of her feet and then back again.
My ringtone indicated that there was a voicemail on my phone.
“Life’s been good,” I said, not wanting to pursue it. I couldn’t tell her anything. “Have you been crying every day now that I quit?” I was trying to lighten the moment and turn the conversation back to her.
“Oh my gosh, you quit?” she said with a smile. “I didn’t even notice.” Then she looked into my eyes for a moment. “You’re cute. Boop.” Her boop coincided with using her forefinger to tap the end of my nose.
“Wow. You’ve had enough to drink to think I’m cute? It’s probably time to call it a night.”
“I have to go back to my friends but you should call me some time, okay?”
“I will.” I said, knowing that I wouldn’t. “Have a good night.”
“I’m serious. Call me.”
“Okay, okay.”
She gave me a hug that lasted a little longer than the traditional hug but I didn’t mind.
Then a text message came in from Charlie. It had been a while since I had heard from her so I was hoping that she was looking for a booty call. She wasn’t. She had sent me one of those pictures where someone holds the camera at the end of their fully extended arm so they can take a picture of themselves and someone or something else. The someone else was Andrew, asleep in his bed. At first glance I thought he was dead but it was my eyes playing tricks on me. There was too much blood in his cheeks.
I called Charlie. It didn’t even ring on my end before she picked up.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I was pissed but I made sure to keep control of my tongue because no matter how mad I was, I knew that she would have no problems killing him and then me.
“I thought that would get your attention, love,” she said. I could hear her smile on the other end of the phone.
“Yes. You have it. Get out of my house.”
“Oh I don’t have to.” she said, “You invited me in all those months ago and now you can’t uninvite me because you are one of us.”
“So talk. What do you want from me?” I said.
I was getting nervous that Andrew would wake up and freak the out. If he did I couldn’t blame him. There was also the off chance that Charlie would decide to kill him for some reason that I wasn’t aware of yet.
“I wanted your attention, Love. That’s all.” she said again with another whisper.
“I know you said that already.” I wanted to yell but I thought that Andrew might wake up if I raised my voice.
“Good. I’m glad that you understand.” Then she hung up. I tried to call her back but I went straight to voicemail.
I started pacing back and forth, I didn’t know what to do. My best friend was in danger because of someone that I had brought home. I called Andrew.
“Yeah?” He mumbled.
“Oh sorry,” I said. “I butt-dialed you.” I knew that it didn’t make sense because if I called him on accident from my pocket I wouldn’t know that he was on the phone. I hoped his sleepiness would it slide.
Then I hung up.
A short time later my phone rang. I groped in my pocket hoping that it was Charlie calling me back, but it was my mom.
“Hi Mom.”
“Hi Tubby. Whatcha up to?”
“Not much. Getting ready take Diablo out to wander for a bit. How about you?”
“Isn’t it a little late to take the dog out for a walk?”
“Um, yeah. It won’t be a very long walk. I need to make sure that she doesn’t have to pee in the middle of the night an
d wake me up.”
I thought to myself, “nice move, idiot.” I was trying to stay under the radar but I couldn’t even keep my mouth shut about going out for a nighttime stroll in one of the most dangerous cities in the country. I knew that when I went on a stroll that I wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but she didn’t.
“I went to the doctor today. I hate how long they make you wait, even if you have an appointment.”
“Yeah, me too.” I wanted to tell her that I was shot and I didn’t even have to go to the doctor because I had healed myself but that would have led to more questions. “How did it go?”
“Well,” she paused. I had my fan on for Diablo because it was hot outside and during her pause I was looking at it. Time slowed down. I could see each individual fin on the fan. “They have to do a biopsy on a few of my lymph nodes.”
“They think you have cancer?” Even though it is against the rules to change a member of your family (punishable by death), I immediately wanted to turn her into one of us so that she would live forever.
“The doctor doesn’t know so they are going to check.”
I wanted to ask her if I could borrow some money to fly home but there weren’t flights that only went between sunset and sunrise.
“Should I come home?” I asked.
“Oh no. Don’t be ridiculous. It is a simple procedure and it will probably turn out to be nothing.”
The key word repeated itself in my head. Probably, probably, probably, probably.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. There is no reason to talk about it any more,” she said with enough force to remain nice but to let me know that this part of the conversation was over.
We talked for a little while longer but I don’t remember what was said. The words biopsy and her voice saying, “will probably turn out to be nothing, probably, probably” drowned out everything else.
After Sunset Page 10