by Karen Greco
"Yeah, Casper." My ghost scowled at me when I called him that, but I scowled right back at him. "Don't deface my shit with offensive graffiti. That's like a supernatural hate crime."
Agitated once again, he flickered in and out, jumping in front of me then fading away as I got closer to the bike.
He moved around so much that I passed through him by accident. The cold ooze moved through my body. I gritted my teeth and shuddered.
He stopped cold and stared at me. He looked almost familiar, but I couldn't place him. He had probably come into the bar once or twice. I felt myself soften. It's not easy being dead.
"Look," I said in a low voice. "You need to move on, my friend. There's no reason to stay here anymore. You’re supposed to move on.”
He became more animated, and his mouth began moving rapidly again. It looked like he was trying to speak, but I couldn't hear a word.
"Sorry," I muttered. "I don't speak ghost."
He looked exasperated and pointed at me and then at the bike. Then pointed at himself and the crime scene. Then me and bike. Then him and the crime scene. I was playing freaking charades with a ghost!
"Do what you need to do," I said with a shrug. Then I straddled my bike, turned the ignition and felt the sweet engine kick in between my legs.
And then he did it.
The cold plasma ooze of ghost dropped into me, but didn't slip through like before. I felt his presence drop into my body. Then a searing pain shot through my head, ricocheting off the walls of my skull.
I couldn't ride like this. I killed the ignition and gripped the handlebars. "Get out," I seethed.
"Can you hear me?" He had a deep voice, with a slight Spanish accent.
"Of course I can hear you. You are in my brain!"
"Need help," he said. He was struggling at the possession too, which made me feel slightly better.
"Hate to break it to you, but you're dead. Not much I can do." I pressed at my temples with my finger tips, as if I could squeeze him out.
"Behind you! Don't trust!" With those parting words, he jumped out of my body, leaving me shaking with cold.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw a uniform cop coming up behind me on foot. Once again, I turned the ignition on my bike.
"Hey!" The cop called out, rushing up beside me. I instinctively reached into my jacket but came up empty. I wasn't expecting trouble, so I wasn't packing any weapons.
"This is a crime scene. You can't be here." His voice sounded normal, but he didn't seem human to me. His movements were too quick; the color of his green eyes too vibrant.
"On my way out," I waved my hand and kicked the bike into gear.
He stepped in front of the motorcycle, and grabbed the handlebars. The back tire spun on the pavement but I wasn't going anywhere. Now that he was right in front of me, I recognized him. He had been outside of Babe's earlier, canvassing the neighborhood. He smiled, and his fangs flashed in the spillover from the spotlight. Damn it. I knew Marcello lurked in the shadows outside of Babe's. Was this the only one he turned?
The good news was he was a new vampire. A very new vampire. And I could handle a new vampire. It was the ones that had centuries on me that gave me the problems.
I killed the engine. Swinging my legs onto the seat, I quickly stood on the bike. I did a back flip off the bike as the Vampire Cop made a lunge for my legs. New vamps may be fast, but they are stupid, so they don’t anticipate their opponents very well. I just had to keep him moving until I could arm myself with something.
Vampire Cop lurched towards me and made another grab. I dropped to the ground in a push-up position. His arms wrapped themselves around air. I pushed my legs up and kicked out, nailing him right in the groin. He fell to the ground, whimpering.
I grinned. I loved that death didn't take that particular pain away.
While he was down, I hauled ass to the mountain of scrap metal and grabbed at the rustiest piece I could find. But the jagged piece I snatched sliced my wrist and blood sprayed out.
Vampire Cop forgot all about his aching testicles at the smell of blood. As I awkwardly wrapped my bloody wrist in my scarf, he rushed me. He pinned me against the metal mountain, which moaned when he pressed my body into it.
He gripped my neck with his left hand, and pulled my right wrist to his mouth. I yelped in pain when he bit down. His fangs pushed through my flesh and he began sucking.
I groaned as his opiate-laced saliva forced its way into my body, slowly turning the excruciating pain into intense pleasure. With my body limp, Vampire Cop raised his face, wiping my blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. He smiled. His fangs dripped blood. He dropped his hand from my neck and fumbled under my leather jacket. He ripped at my t-shirt, groping for my breasts.
Like most newly turned, Vampire Cop couldn't separate blood lust from sexual desire. They were linked. He pushed against me, and I could feel his erection through our layers of clothes. His extreme hardness was one more side effect turning Dracula. I had heard that it made sex unbelievable. But I wasn't interested in finding out if this was true, especially not from Vampire Cop. I preferred my dudes with a heartbeat.
With the lure of sex as a distraction, I made my move. My vampire metabolism pushed the drugs quickly through my system, so the opiate-induced pleasure wasn't as prolonged. I shuddered as his hand brushed against my nipple. I pushed my pelvis into his. Satisfied that he was fully distracted, I reached for the jagged metal that caused this commotion in the first place.
Gripping the metal tightly, I gave Vampire Cop a strong shove. He stumbled back about three feet, looking stunned, his cock hanging out of his pants. Before he could react, I swung the piece of metal through his neck. The jagged teeth of the rusty metal cut into him, and then force took over. His head dropped to the ground, then his body crumpled down after it.
My legs gave out, and I slid to the pavement. Taking deep breaths, I tried to control my shaking. I still had more work to do. I was only halfway done to really destroying Vampire Cop. I still needed to cut out his heart and burn it.
Gathering myself together, I crawled to his body. Kneeling over the torso, I shoved my fist through the chest cavity with all my strength, shattering the ribcage. I plunged my makeshift metal weapon through his skin, digging out the heart. I reached in and pulled it out.
Still unsteady, I got to my feet and staggered to a barrel several yards away. I tossed in the heart, then went back to my bike and pulled lighter fluid and a match from my saddlebag. Returning to the barrel, I sprayed the fluid and dropped in a lit match. An inhuman shriek pierced the cold air, and Vampire Cop’s body turned to dust, leaving a rumpled pile of clothes behind. At least that part of a vampire kill wasn't messy.
Tossing his uniform into the burning barrel, I said a quick prayer. I wasn't religious by any stretch, but it was the best way I could show respect. He was a human being once. There were people in his life who loved him. We were close in age; he could have been a friend. He could have hung out at Babe's. He didn't want to become a monster. It was forced on him. He was a casualty of war.
Pushing the senselessness of it all out of my mind, I straddled my bike. I could hear the cops telling grisly jokes in voices too loud, trying to ignore the depravity around them. Death hung in the air, threatening to suffocate all of us. They were already denying what was right in front of them. It was easy to ignore the noise of my battle with Vampire Cop. We really were just things that went bump in the night. Funny how the human mind can play tricks.
I turned the ignition. The engine purred. Passing 7-Eleven, I saw Stoner Clerk out front smoking a joint, staring down the road at the cop lights. He was so mesmerized, and stoned, he didn’t notice me at all. The despair of the city weighed heavily that night. And, the cops looked like dinner. The fight left me with low blood sugar. Again. I had to eat something before I vamped out. I peeled off towards the blinking neon of Fantasy Island.
CHAPTER 6
It was close to five in the morning by
the time I got home. I was grateful for the silence in my apartment. I was reeling from the events of the past few hours.
I dropped my helmet on the kitchen table, and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. I sighed longingly at the sight of my bed, tucked into the far corner of my loft. But instead of throwing myself on it, I gingerly walked around piles of unopened moving boxes to my ancient armoire styled with Gothic flourishes that held court at the foot of my bed. Promising myself I would unpack one more box tomorrow, I dropped to the floor and reached into a hidden bottom compartment and pulled out a long, narrow box. I took a deep breath and opened it.
The heavy iron dagger had an ornate silver hilt of entwined serpents shaped into an ancient Gothic cross. The blade, curved and sharp, caught the dim light with a glint as I unsheathed it. It was my father's dagger.
The dagger, like the armoire, was one of the few possessions left by my parents. The dagger was from my father's original family, forged somewhere in Italy during the time of the early Medicis. Babe had told me wild stories about it over the years -- that it was forged from the fires of hell or something. She never liked it, but she never really told me why. I had no clue if her hellfire stories were true, but I knew it was special -- magical in some way. And Marcello had its twin. It was rusted and dented and worse for wear, but I was certain it was the same mystical weapon. And it slashed me.
"I knew it looked familiar," I muttered to the dagger, as if it could talk to me.
I put the blade back in its sheath. But instead of returning it to the armoire, I slipped it into a special compartment built into my boot. I had no idea why I wanted it close, but I knew it was time to put it to work.
I headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stripped out of my clothes and stood in front of the mirror to investigate the damage. My neck burned where the blade had cut me, and there was still a red mark where it sliced my skin. It was odd for a wound to linger that long, but maybe it was just rust. I’d have to see. Otherwise, all the bruises from the fight had healed. I'd clean up fine. I just looked exhausted.
I placed a bath bomb into the shower, stepped under the hot spray, grateful to finally be able to clean the stale beer out of my hair. I leaned against the cool tile wall of the stall and took deep breaths, inhaling the eucalyptus scent. It helped me focus.
It had been a crap night: attacked by a vampire, almost outed as a supernatural freak myself, sliced with my blade's twin, almost went all Dracula on Max in the ER because fresh blood was flowing. Oh and I had a run-in with a ghost.
What. The. Fuck.
I lathered up my hair, rubbing my head gently since I was apparently mildly concussed.
Assuming that Babe got a hold of Dr. O, and assuming he thought this merited a "drop everything" attitude, I could expect my team to get into Providence in the next 24 hours. Thinking of them made me smile. Apart from Babe, they were the only family I had.
After my parents died and my aunt realized that she couldn't care for a part-vampire baby, she took me to Dr. O, who had been working with my dad. Dr. Lochlan O'Malley was in charge of Blood Ops, our unit of the top-secret government program. It fell under the purview of the Department of Defense. BO. No kidding.
Most Blood Ops members lived on an army base in the middle of the Nevada desert. That's where I was brought up, training for battle with all sorts of supernatural monsters and learning how to control my vampire instincts. I was "home schooled" by an elite team of educators, most of whom happened to be werewolves. Werewolves specifically were often extremely intelligent and had extraordinary discipline. Most other were creatures were as unruly as vampires.
Members of the Blood Ops unit watch for signs of supernatural crime. For example, most unsolved murders are usually the act of supernatural forces. But these cases don't necessarily go cold. Blood Ops investigates, and if the crime is supernatural, we dish out something closer to vigilante justice. Often a silver bullet, an incantation, or a stake takes care of the problem. Trial by jury and all that is impossible. The only way to restrain a rogue supernatural creature is to destroy it.
Did I stake a friend of Marcello's and now he's looking for revenge? No idea how he could connect it with me. Blood Ops members operate in the shadows, but then again, so do vampires like Marcello. The creatures we hunt are kind of aware we exist, but we are almost more like lore and legend then an actual, real threat. We are the fairy tales their maker’s told them to keep them in check, sort of the "scared straight" of the preternatural world. Most of our bad guys are genuinely surprised when we show up to take them down.
So I wasn’t convinced that Marcello had a beef with me because of my Blood Ops affiliation. But since it was where I spent the past 30 years of my life, what else could it be? I haven't been in Providence long enough to piss anyone off.
The Blood Op members that can mainstream, like myself, live among humans. I returned to my hometown of Providence, for instance, because it was turning into a hotbed of supernatural activity. That, and Babe wanted me to come home and help run the bar, which she co-owned with my mom. After Mom died, the bar became half mine. Moving to Providence was the first time I had ever lived away from the Blood Ops base since I was a baby. Weird that coming "home" was more like leaving home. I didn't really miss the desert, but I definitely missed my friends.
I tilted my head into the spray of the showerhead and rinsed my hair. The soapy water cascaded down my back. I picked up the bar of soap and began to lather my body.
I closed my eyes and for a split second imagined how Max's muscular arms would feel wrapped around my body.
Max was FBI. I was jarred back to reality. I wondered if that would make it harder or easier to hide Blood Ops from him. Relationships were complicated enough. I’d had a few one-nighters in my time, but I clocked more intimate time with my Rabbit vibrator than with a flesh-and-blood man.
A life like mine made it impossible to have any sort of relationship. It was hard to answer the "so what do you do" question. "Hunter of all things inexplicable" sounded a bit mad. "Blood Ops Agent" sounded absurd. And let's not even get into the vampire thing.
Relationships were definitely an issue.
I turned off the shower, grabbed a fluffy green towel off the rack and wrapped it around myself. Thinking about Max was way more fun than thinking about Marcello. But dealing with Marcello was clearly more important.
He was definitely after me, but there wasn't a clear reason why. Most vampires stayed out of the spotlight, attacking in alleyways and on deserted streets. Or they seduce you and attack in the privacy of your own home. An attack in the open was rare. Marcello seemed like a rogue. But more important, why was a rogue targeting me?
I padded back to my armoire and opened it again, this time pulling out an oversized t-shirt. After shimmying into it, I climbed into my bed, snuggling into my down comforter.
I suspected the answers about Marcello had more to do with me than with a vampire I staked. Wasn't it weird that I returned home after 30 years essentially undercover in Blood Ops to get attacked by a rogue vamp? I thought so. And then there was the knife -- a near replica of the one that belonged to my father. I had never seen one like it before, and then this clown shows up at Babe’s, stabbing at me with the damn thing. I spent a lot of years hanging around Vegas, so I was a betting girl, and I’d double down on this having something to do with my murdered parents.
Babe, Dr. O and Frankie were my only links to my past. I hoped one of them had some answers.
My mind began to drift, and I fell into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 7
Babe was in her usual position at the end of the bar when I arrived by late afternoon. Plywood covered the hole where the window once was. A few regulars -- a bunch of old men who lived in the neighborhood, including Alfonso the drunk -- were dotted along the distressed wooden bar, nursing their drinks and chattering about crime statistics while they leafed through the newspaper. Babe’s may be a college dive bar at night, but the dayt
ime is reserved for the old-time neighborhood guys.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and plopped down on the stool next to Babe.
"Business as usual," Babe said with a nod. "Just a little more cave-like in here than we're used to."
"Well, you know I always appreciate that," I smiled. "Did you find Dr. O?"
"Said he'd fly out on the jet last night, while Frankie was still -- " Babe pursed her lips. "Able."
"Good," I nodded.
Frankie was full-vampire. The majority of them weren't depraved blood suckers. Hell, Frankie was descended from nobility.
Frankie and the rest of my crew would arrive once the sun went down, which was soon. The sky was already turning a vibrant pink, and a cold wind was kicking up.
I glanced up at the muted television. Ami Bertrand was back on the tube.
"Turn that up, will ya, Nina?" Alfonso hollered from his stool. I vaulted the bar and snatched the remote, turning up the volume. Then I gave him a refill on his beer.
Bertrand's voice was like silk in our ears. "It's a shame that the good citizens of this fair city, a city founded by a renegade, an outcast, have had to tolerate a political insider for all these years. He bought and sold your freedom ten times over..."
Alfonse blew a raspberry at the television.
"What do you make of that, Alfonso?" I asked.
"I don't like him, and I don't trust him." Alfonse sipped his beer thoughtfully. "But he'll win the special election."
His fellow regulars whooped and laughed at him.
Alfonso just shook his head and grunted. "What do you think, Senorita Babe?" he called out at the end of the bar.
"Al, you know I am way too old to be a senorita," she chuckled. "But you're right, he'll win."
"Shut that fool off, would ya?" Alfonso went back to his newspaper. I hit the mute button again and began slicing lemons for the night crowd.
"Nina, how are you feeling?" Babe looked at me over the rim of her glasses, which were sitting on the tip of her nose.