by Carly Fall
The vampires he’d watched tonight had minded their manners, and relief washed through him, relaxing his shoulder muscles he hadn’t realized had been tensed. The night had been boring and a fantastic waste of time, and as he headed back to his own apartment, he hoped he didn’t come across anything in the papers tomorrow. The last thing he wanted was to read about a death where the victim looked as if they had been bitten, or worse. He was only one man and couldn’t be everywhere at once, but he did the best he could to protect the human population from the paranormal entities they didn’t know existed among them.
He’d become used to the solitude, although sometimes, he did miss the company of others. Growing up in a Catholic orphanage, there had always been someone to talk to. After turning eighteen, he’d headed to the military where he’d mainly followed orders screamed at him, but he’d rarely spent any time alone. His knowledge of vampires had him on self-imposed isolation, because he didn’t know who to trust with the information, and then there was always the chance that he’d just lost his mind. Perhaps he resided in an alternate universe, like some of the homeless people who populated the streets who talked to others no one else could see.
He stopped short when he noticed a man in a wheelchair sitting in front of his door, accompanied by another man in a tracksuit. Dressed in a suit and tie, he certainly didn’t look as though he looked for the drug dealers or prostitutes.
Connor narrowed his gaze as he approached them.
When the man in the wheelchair saw him, he smiled and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Mr. Dickson!”
It wasn’t a question. He knew Connor, so no point in denying it.
For a moment, he thought about running, then briefly considered what it would take to beat them both senseless if the need arose. The guy in the wheelchair seemed pretty harmless, but the other dude looked like he could do damage, if necessary.
He didn’t see the bulge of weapons on them, but that didn’t mean they didn’t carry any. Considering he didn’t have one on him, he hoped his assessment proved correct.
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Joe Smith. I was hoping to have a moment of your time.”
He checked the guy from head to toe one last time. No, Joe certainly didn’t look dangerous, and it seemed as if he really did just want to talk. “What’s this about?”
The man folded his hands over a manila envelope in his lap and grinned. “Vampires, Mr. Dickson—something I know you’re quite familiar with.”
3
Well, color him all surprised. For a moment, he swayed in his boots, completely lightheaded, unsure if he’d heard the guy correctly. He really wanted to talk about vampires? Maybe Connor wasn’t the only one who could see them. With his curiosity piqued, they walked down to an all-night pancake house down the street. His apartment was far too small to hold three grown men—one of whom sat in a wheelchair.
Joe led them over to a corner booth that offered privacy as the restaurant sat practically empty. Connor nodded at a few prostitutes he recognized from his building, and they smiled at him. Like him, they were winding down their night, and in a few hours when the rest of the world had come to life, his small apartment complex would be as quiet as a morgue.
Once they were seated, the waitress asked what they wanted. He placed her in her fifties, or maybe older, with deep bags under her empty, green eyes, slashes of red lipstick across her mouth, and pale skin that sagged around her jaw, reminding him of a basset hound. She seemed miserable, and he was reminded just how dismal his own life had become.
He ordered a vegetable omelet with two sides of bacon and a coffee. Joe and his bodyguard—or whatever the guy was; Connor hadn’t figured out the relationship quite yet—requested only coffee.
He squirmed under Joe’s scrutinizing stare as he stirred a bit of sugar in his java. How did this guy know about vampires, and what exactly did he know? How had they found him?
“What do you guys want?” he finally asked, meeting Joe’s perceptive blue gaze.
“Yes. Let’s get down to business,” Joe said. “As I stated, my name’s Joe Smith. I’m aware of your gift of being able to see the vampires that walk among us. Based on what we’ve seen of you, you seem to fancy yourself some type of Lone Ranger looking to make sure everyone plays by the rules. Am I correct on that?”
He arched his eyebrow, the word ‘gift’ not sitting well with him. “I think of it more of a curse than a gift.”
And how the hell did Joe know about this ability of his, to start with? Could he have a connection with the hospital, maybe seen his records and the battery of tests done to ascertain he didn’t have a brain injury?
The bespectacled man studied him intently. “And why is that?”
Connor looked around the restaurant to make sure everybody was minding their own business and not trying to eavesdrop on this wacked conversation. He leaned in and spoke in low tones to be sure he couldn’t be overheard. “Because I’m the only one who seems to be able to see the fucking things, and sometimes, I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.”
Joe nodded and smiled. “I can assure you, Mr. Dickson, that you haven’t. I have it on good authority that vampires are very real.”
Connor sat back in his seat, feeling both relieved and afraid. Relieved that he wasn’t crazy, and afraid that he wasn’t. If he had been, then he could at least chalk what he’d seen up to hallucinations, but from what Joe said, he couldn’t. Therefore, he’d been right all this time, and he once again wondered how and why he could see them.
“Who’s this authority?” he asked.
Joe smiled and laced his fingers on the table. “We’ll get to that in a minute, Mr. Dickson. First, I would like to hear what you believe your role to be in this world as you know it.”
What, seriously? This guy seemed to crave a lot of information, but didn’t want to give much up.
As he stared at Joe, he tried to figure out why he trusted the guy so much, and if it could be a mistake to do so. His gut told him he could, and he always listened to his gut. From the second Joe had said he wanted to talk about vampires, Connor had been on board. Maybe it was because he’d been unsure of his own sanity for just about a year. Now here sat Joe across from him, validating what he’d come to believe.
“Let’s start at the beginning, Connor. You were in an explosion while on patrol in the Guatemalan jungle. You woke up in a hospital and realized—“
“How did you know about that?”
Joe shook his head, as if he cleared his thoughts. “My apologies. I should have explained myself better. I have found most of your old platoon. Brody, Lucas, Jordan, Ruben, Zachary, Garrett … they’re all alive and doing quite well working for me. However, the explosion has also affected them in very significant ways.”
He furrowed his brow, curiosity eating at him. He’d wondered what had happened to all of them, and had asked the hospital staff many times. They hadn’t been able to offer him any information, and he’d assumed they’d died and he’d been the only survivor of the explosion.
He was happy to hear they were all okay, but it also surprised and fascinated him that he wasn’t the only one who had come out of the jungle different. “Like what? Do they see vampires, too?”
“No, you are the only one with that gift, or curse, as you call it,” Joe said with a chuckle. “They’ve been affected in different ways. Brody has an intricate connection with the sea and can control it. Ruben can start fires with his mind. Zachary has been left completely blind, except he sees visions of the future in the mirror every morning. Garrett can turn into a bear. We just found out not too long ago that Jordan can kill people with his mind. So, as you can see, you aren’t the only one who had been left significantly altered.”
He stared at Joe for a moment, wondering if the guy was certifiable. However, if he could see vampires, why couldn’t what Joe told him be true? What was more fucked up? Seeing vampires, or any of the ‘gifts’ that had been bestowed on the others? He didn’t quite kn
ow, but it seemed all of them had been screwed out of a normal life no matter what way he looked at it, and his stomach clenched in anger. He’d give just about anything to find ‘normal’ again.
“So, let’s continue, Mr. Dickson. You found out that vampires did indeed exist. What happened then?”
“You can call me Connor.”
“Very well. Please continue, Connor.”
Once he’d realized that he could see vampires and become acutely aware that, yes, they did feed on humans, his first instinct had been to kill them. It angered him that they had the audacity to take something that wasn’t theirs, especially with the humans seeming to be unaware it even happened.
However, as he read up on vampire mythology, he realized that no one really knew how to kill one. Some said a stake to the heart; others proclaimed silver was the answer, while others said sunlight. He’d watched almost every vampire movie around, and none of them offered any insight, because they all contradicted each other. In some, the vampires died in sunlight; in others, they sparkled. While some movies portrayed vampires as animalistic, greedy, narcissists, others characterized them as almost human-like, except they needed blood to live. Based on what he’d seen, he guessed the truth lay somewhere in between.
No matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find any concrete, scientific evidence on vampires, and that probably bothered him most of all. Could it be possible he was the only person on this planet who knew they existed? If so, why? He found the notion hard to believe, and wondered if it could be some government conspiracy. Or, maybe, he’d suffered brain damage while in Guatemala and all the scans and tests hadn’t picked up on it.
He’d come to the conclusion that vampires needed the blood to live. The ones he’d witnessed feeding hadn’t wanted to harm the humans. That had left him with a moral dilemma—if they weren’t harming anyone and they’d been living among humans for a long time, who was he to play judge, jury, and executioner? Perhaps the best thing to do was to ignore what he saw and pretend they didn’t exist.
One night, that line of thinking changed in a flash.
He’d been walking to the homeless shelter in downtown Vegas to get a meal and hopefully a bed for the night, minding his own business. He’d heard scuffling from an alleyway to his right, then low snarls and hissing. Maybe he’d stumbled onto a cat fight? He couldn’t see anything as the alleyway reminded him of a black hole.
Just as he’d been about to leave the felines to their battle, a red glow had caught his eye. He’d watched as it grew brighter and brighter, then a ‘thud’ had met his ears.
With his heart pounding in his chest, he’d observed the glow move toward him. Fear had clenched his stomach as he’d caught the coppery scent of blood. When the vampire had emerged from the darkness, Connor had gasped and stepped back.
Completely disheveled and looking like one of the homeless people who populated the city with its sagging pants and too large sweatshirt, the vampire had been covered in blood—his face, his hands, his clothing—all of it, red. Bits of flesh had stuck to the front of its grey shirt, and he’d panted and snarled like a rabid animal.
.As their gazes had met, glassy eyes had seemed to look right through him, as if he didn’t exist.
Relief had torn through him as he’d realized the vampire had no intention of hurting him, but whoever was lying in the dark alleyway had met a different fate.
While he told Joe his tale, the waitress had come and served the food. He scarfed down a few pieces of bacon and asked for more coffee. Getting the story off his chest was liberating, and the more he talked, the better he felt. Energy coursed through him, and he became absolutely ravenous.
“Please, eat, Connor. You act as if you haven’t eaten in days.”
As he continued to eat his omelet, he cringed a bit. The nuns had hammered manners into him, and shoving food in his pie hole wouldn’t win him any etiquette awards. He slowed down, deliberately sitting up straight and chewing a mouthful before he took another.
He felt his companions’ stares on him as he ate, and he pulled the napkin from the table and set it on his lap. Joe definitely looked like a guy who appreciated manners, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place why he cared—except it had been ingrained in him since birth. To this day, he could practically feel the nuns rapping on his middle back with a ruler when he didn’t sit up straight.
“Connor,” Joe said, his voice soft and kind. “If you want more to eat, please order it. This is on me.”
He didn’t want any pity, but, yeah, the energy bars and Red Bull he’d been living on didn’t compare to the real food before him. He could go for another omelet, or maybe some pancakes …
He ordered a stack of pancakes.
As they waited, he answered Joe’s question. How did he see himself in the vampire world now?
“The night I saw that vampire come out of the alley, I went in. I couldn’t see anything, but the smell of blood was so strong, I didn’t think there was any way for that person to survive. I mean, that damn thing had bits of flesh on his shirt, like he’d torn apart his prey.
“I felt sick to my stomach because I didn’t know what to do. Go to the police? I couldn’t because I sounded as crazy as I felt when I thought about telling an officer that a vampire had done it. They’d throw my ass in jail.”
He took a long drink of coffee with trembling hands while he remembered the incident.
“What happened then?” Joe asked.
“I read about the killing the next day. A woman with her throat missing. I suppose I took on a protector role from then on. I wondered if I could have stopped her murder. I wondered why that vampire acted the way he did, but I’ve never seen that type of behavior since then. But, I vowed I would make sure I put a stop to it if I ever saw it again, because that shit isn’t right.”
Joe smiled, his gaze never leaving Connor as the waitress set down his stack of goodness. He slathered butter on the pancakes, drowned them in syrup, then dug in.
They sat quiet for a long time as he finished his pancakes and tried to calm the anger and fear the memory evoked. He’d been so wound up that night, he hadn’t been able to sleep.
Finally, Joe broke the silence. “Do you work with anyone?”
He shook his head. “No. Just me.”
“Do you want to work with anyone else? Would you appreciate the help?”
He set down his fork and wiped his mouth. “I never really thought about it.”
“There’s an organization that fights non-human entities living among us. They would be very interested in employing someone like you.”
An organization that fights the non-human entities living among us? Why did that make him think there might be more than just vampires walking among the humans? How insane did that sound?
About as crazy as you believing they actually exist.
He thought for a moment about getting clarification on the other beings walking around with humans, but decided against it. If there were vampires, he didn’t see any reason why there wouldn’t be other things—maybe aliens, fairies, ghosts … who knew.
What if he had help in his quest to protect humans from vampires? What if the people who made up the organization knew more about them than he did? Not going at it alone anymore did sound pretty good, but at the same time, he’d been alone for a year and had become pretty comfortable with it.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Joe nodded as the waitress set down the check.
“Anything else?” she asked, her voice tired.
Connor shook his head, feeling as though he’d eaten enough for five people.
“Thank you,” Joe said, handing her some bills. “Please, keep the change.”
She smiled, shoved the money into her apron pocket, then walked away.
“You’ll receive an invitation to join the organization, Connor,” Joe said in a low voice. “You must accept or decline within twenty-four hours of receiving it. If you do accept
, I’ll pick you up and take you to where you need to go.”
It all sounded a little bizarre to him, but then again, they were discussing a group that helped keep humans safe from paranormal beings that wanted to hurt them. They were so far away from ‘normal,’ it was like they resided in another solar system.
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
Joe pushed back from the booth. “Goodnight, Connor. Or perhaps I should say, good morning. I’ll take my leave now.”
He felt pretty tired, but definitely rode a sugar high complete with a racing heart and jittery hands, so sleep wouldn’t come for a while.
Standing, he considered the invitation, and he realized he had no way to contact Joe if he did decide to accept it.
“How do I get a hold of you?” Connor asked as he caught up with Joe.
Joe smiled up at him. “I’ll get in touch with you. I’ll be notified if you accept, and I’ll come get you.”
They walked back to his apartment in silence. The darkness had given way to dawn, and the sky had just begun to turn a soft shade of pink. It had been a long time since he’d seen a sunrise from a mountaintop, and he wished he were on one now. Gone would be Joe, vampires, organizations that hunted paranormal beings … just him, a cup of coffee, and nature in all her beautiful glory.
“Goodbye, Connor,” Joe said, shaking his hand. “I look forward to hearing what you decide to do.”
He sighed and watched them load up in a van, then drive away.
Approaching his apartment, he noticed an envelope taped to the door. He glanced around to see if anyone looked out of place, but the complex remained quiet and the parking lot empty.
He yanked the envelope off the wood panel, then pulled his keys from his pocket, nerves causing his hands to shake even more. After unlocking the door, he stepped inside. Tossing the envelope on the bed, he then stripped down, picked up the envelope again, and slipped between the threadbare sheets.