My body was sore and I felt drained. I’d spent the day training with Phil, my former MMA instructor. He used to teach me when I was still in the field. We’d joined forces and I’d added the shooting school and female self-defense to his academy after I’d decided the killing life wasn’t for me.
When enough of my classes were cancelled there was time for Phil to take me on again. I had to keep my senses sharp and I liked it when he went all out on me. I was strong for a human, being half-vampire, but he still knew how to give me a run for my money.
I crawled into bed after Connor had left for the night. It was new moon and it was darker than usual. I was happy with the darkness. The shutters that closed during the day to keep the light out for Connor to be able to survive were open. I knew that he needed them, but with my ability to brave the sun as a half-vampire, they just made me feel claustrophobic. That was one of the reasons I hadn’t chosen a nocturnal lifestyle, even though it put strain on my relationship with Connor sometimes.
The moment I closed my eyes it all came back to me again. The face that I hadn’t been able to outrun for the past couple of nights.
I was stalking the vampire in a bad part of town. I had my leathers on and my leather jacket only zipped up halfway so I could get to the Smith & Wesson I had in my shoulder holster. It was big and chunky to wear under my arm and it was impossible to hide with the form-fitting clothes I wore, but I wasn’t going for discreet. The vampires would know that I was there to kill them when it came down to it. There was no reason to hide.
I preferred the S&W despite its bulk because it was strong enough to stop an angry vampire for long enough that I could think of something else to save my life. I was strong but not strong enough to take on a purebred.
I could smell the vampire. He was young and he left small signs of his passing. He would still learn. I doubted he was a human before he became a vampire. Some were made, some were born. Even though it was clear this one was young, the signs he dropped were erratic. Like he moved more like a cat than a human.
The smell was also different. Something about it was a little feral, like it had never been tamed, which was the case with humans. It was that smell that I followed. The signs were just a confirmation.
When I reached the end of the alley, I stopped and listened. I heard voices, more than one but I didn’t think there were more than two, and they were low, speaking in hushed tones like they were used to creatures with sharper hearing out there. It made my job harder, but not by much.
I popped my head around the corner, enough to see them but still be hidden. The vampire stood talking to another vampire that could almost be his twin. I was guessing a brother or other close family member. The second vampire carried himself with confidence, and his movements were more fluid, like he’d been around for longer.
If I wanted to take out my mark, I was going to have to wait until the other vampire left. I couldn’t take on two monster; one was already challenge enough.
I waited. A short while later I checked again and the vampire stood there alone. My guess was that the older vampire had dematerialized. I strained my ears but there was no one around. The vampire just stood out in the open. It was the middle of the night and the chances of getting in trouble weren’t very good, but it was still careless.
I made my move. I was fast – not as fast as a purebred – and I managed to catch him off guard. I swung the chain and lashed it out before he looked around and registered what was happening. The chain clipped shut around his wrist and he was going nowhere.
He went see-through almost immediately, trying hard to dematerialize, but the chain was going to keep him right where he was.
I pushed him up against a wall and he struggled. He was strong but I had the upper hand, fear stopped him from thinking straight.
The familiar black fog emanated from him. He was using all his defensive mechanisms long before he really knew he was going to die. It was either a subconscious thing, a feeling, or he was a lot more scared than other vampires. Either way, I felt sorry for him.
I pushed it away because feeling sorry for my mark was going to get me in trouble. I couldn’t afford emotional involvement.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked when I produced my silver stake and positioned it just under his ribs at an upward angle. His eyes were wide and rolling around in their sockets, looking for a way out. He wasn’t even fighting; fear had made him paralytic.
“Orders,” I said. I didn’t usually justify myself. I didn’t think I had to. But there was something pathetic about this one. Something that might have compelled me to let him go if this wasn’t about the greater good – about getting vampires taken out so that they couldn’t rip more families apart.
“But you’re one of us,” he said and his voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. It travelled through me like a shock. They all knew eventually, but he said it like my very existence was a betrayal. And maybe it really was.
I pushed the stake into him. He gasped with pain and his face went whiter than it already was. It hurt me to do it this time, and I had to force myself to push it home. I felt the muscle of the heart push back and then give as the metal entered it, and then the vampire suddenly opened its mouth and screamed.
“Zane!” he screamed over and over again. I let go of the chain I was holding and blocked his mouth. They never screamed after the stake had hit home. But he kept squealing and my hand did a poor job of muffling the sound with my body leaning against the stake to keep it in place. Finally, the body crumpled and sank to the floor, sliding away from the stake that remained bloody in my hand. I was aware of all the blood, the warmth that drained out of the body, and it seemed out of me.
I heard a gasp behind me and whirled around. It was the other vampire. He looked so alike the one I’d just killed, it almost freaked me out. He looked with horror at the body on the floor, and then back at me. He hissed, baring his fangs and made to charge me, but I swung the chain in his direction. He must have known what would follow, because instead of attacking like he’d wanted to, he dematerialized.
I left the murder site with the victims’ ID for Ruben, and two faces haunting me. The face of the dead, and the face of the living.
I sat up in bed and the darkness folded around me like a blanket. My heart beat in my chest and I gasped for breath. It felt like I’d been drowning and a sharp pain was wedged between my ribs. I reached my hand out to the other side of the bed and it was made, the sheets cold with the absence of someone sleeping in them. I didn’t know why I felt for Connor. I knew he wouldn’t be there.
The other vampire – the one that had gotten away – haunted me. It was his face that floated in front of my eyes all the time, and his eyes were angry and accusing. I lay back on the pillows but I couldn’t shake that image nor the feeling of guilt.
So I got up and got dressed. It had been a while since I’d been absent at night. Besides my escapades in Fort Atkinson a while ago I’d given up the nightlife because it brought back too many memories.
I got on my bike and turned the throttle, listening to the satisfying growl that filled the night air. I reversed the bike out of the garage and turned down the street.
Aspen was my sister and she was more vampire than I was. Or maybe we were the same amount of vampire, but she embraced the vampire life more than I did. Even with my newfound trust in myself and who I was, I was still more used to the human life, had more human friends than vampire friends, spent more time with humans.
But none of them would be awake now, and I knew that Aspen would be. She was dating Joel, my former techy. After I’d gotten out of the killing game he’d gotten himself a day job somewhere, but he needed very little sleep as it was and he stayed up most of the night too, spending it with Aspen.
The house with its flowing lights in the windows was warm and inviting, the only source of life in the whole street this time of night. It was just after two, and the rest of the neighborhood was quiet. The inhabitants either slept
or they were out doing vampire things. It was a mixed community here.
I stepped up to the front door and rang the bell. I heard Joel before he opened the door, and he smiled.
“I thought it might be you,” he said and stepped to the side so I could walk into the house. It smelled of cooking, the hint of a meal still hanging in the air, and Aspen sat on the couch in the lounge with a blanket over her legs. When she’d lived alone, with just a caretaker, she’d hardly left her chair for anything other than the bath and the bed. But Joel was strong and determined to add as much value to her life as he could.
If I had to choose anyone for Aspen to spend her life with, Joel would be it. He knew our lives well enough to understand who we were, and he left our differences out of it. He was the smartest human I’d ever known. Not just tech-savvy, but life smart.
I walked over to my sister and kissed her hair the way I always did. The way our mother used to do for us. She smiled up at me.
“Bad dreams?” she asked. I nodded. I had nowhere else to run. Joel cleared his throat.
“I’m going to make coffee; do you want?”
We both nodded and he smiled, then disappeared deeper into the house.
“Do you want to talk about it, or about something else?” Aspen asked. Nightmares weren’t always the type of stuff either of us wanted to revisit.
“Something else,” I said.
She nodded and thought for a moment. “Well, I’ve been seeing Carl. He’s back in town and he’s been coming round,” she said.
“I’m surprised he’s come back here so soon,” I said. “How is he doing?”
“There’s nothing left for him there now that the girlfriend we never knew is dead. But I’m worried about him. Since he got out he’s been… different.”
“Different how?” I asked. She shrugged.
“I can’t really put my finger on it, but he’s distracted. And it’s like he’s always looking over his shoulder. Like something’s bothering him. But when I ask he acts like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Being in jail is no joke. People out there want vampires dead.”
We both fell quiet after that statement. It was ironic that I of all people would say that.
“Will you look him up?” she asked. “He obviously trusts you.”
Of all the people he could have asked for help when he was in jail – Carl had so many contacts he knew every person in power, everywhere – he’d called me to help get him out again. It was a compliment in his own way.
“I’ll see what I can do, but he doesn’t really talk to me, you know that. I think he talks to you more than to me, actually. But I’ll go pay him a visit. It’s nice that he’s back in town.”
Aspen nodded, looking a little relieved. She couldn’t do much, being a cripple, and she made up for it by trying to take care of everyone. It was endearing when it wasn’t me. I didn’t like the fuss.
“I’ll phone him and see what’s up with him in the morning,” I said. “I think I’ll feel better when the sun’s out.”
Aspen looked at me with a concerned face.
“Don’t worry about me. You know how these things go. It will blow over.”
She nodded but she didn’t look like she felt better about it. I stayed for a while longer before I finally left them to it. I didn’t want to impose on their family time. I envied them the ability to spend that much time together despite their different schedules. I wished Connor and I could do that, but I didn’t have what it took to get so little sleep. Not anymore.
I left Aspen’s house with something nagging at the back of my mind that I just couldn’t grasp. It wasn’t until I was home, with the garage door rolling shut behind me that I realized what it was.
Aspen got nightmares too from time to time. She told me about them, and when she didn’t, Joel did. We used to have work in common, now our only contact point was Aspen. But it wasn’t about the fact that she had someone that could be there for her in a way that I didn’t. I didn’t need someone to look after me so intensively.
It was about the fact that Aspen’s nightmares were about the original problem. The terrible awful that happened when we were kids. My nightmares were because of everything that I did afterward as a result of that event. My nightmares were homemade.
Connor was home when I walked in through the door. He came to me and wrapped his arms around me, and I melted into them.
“I was worried when you weren’t home,” he said.
“I went to Aspen. I was having nightmares again.”
He let go of me and his face was concerned.
“That’s been happening a lot lately,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s something you need to get looked at?”
I was angry all of a sudden. I didn’t like being angry with Connor, but sometimes he just made it sound like my issues were so easy to fix; why didn’t I reach out for someone years ago?
“And what am I supposed to say, Connor?” I asked and my voice was hard. He winced a little like I’d slapped him. “I’m having nightmares, the people I killed are haunting me?”
His face fell and he suddenly looked paler, if that was possible. He was pale to start off with. Most vampires were. His light hair didn’t help it, and his blue eyes were the color of winter skies. The effect was dramatic and went with the serious face he gave me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“No,” I said and sat down on one of the chairs in the breakfast nook. “It’s just not always that easy to fix me. I’ve done a lot of things that I can never take back. Even when I’ve forgiven my dad for it…”
“You haven’t really forgiven yourself.”
I pursed my lips and swallowed back tears. “I didn’t think there was something to forgive back then. Now…” I swallowed again, hard. “I want to phone Carl up and see how he’s doing.”
If all else fails, change the topic. Connor nodded and went with it. Of all the people in my life, he understood me the best. Or at least, if he didn’t understand me, he let me be.
“That’s good. It will be good to see how he’s doing now that he’s out of jail. I didn’t know he was back in town.”
“Me either. He usually lets someone know. But Aspen told me, so I guess he did.” I took a deep breath and studied my nails. I noticed how many tiny scars were on my knuckles. Side effects of living a fighting life for so long. “I just thought that after everything I’d done for him, he would at least look me up.”
Connor came to me and sat down opposite me. He put his hand on the table, palm up, an invitation, not a request. I put my hand in his and sighed.
“It would have been nice of him, but I think he has a lot to deal with. He lost his girlfriend and spent a lot of time in jail for it because the same person that had killed his parents killed her and framed him for it. You of all people know how that feels. You don’t just crawl out of your shell and open up to people.”
I nodded. In a way he was right. But Carl and I went way back, before Connor, before Joel even. I’d always thought that there was some unspoken rule between us.
“I have to get to bed,” Connor said, glancing at his wristwatch. It was almost sunrise. I nodded and stood up, walking around the small table and sitting on his lap.
“I’m so glad I didn’t kill you,” I said and kissed him. He chuckled against my lips.
“Yeah, I’m pretty happy about that too,” he said. I nudged his shoulder in mock offense. He kissed me again and I got off his lap, letting him get up.
“Are you heading out?” he asked. I nodded. Pointless for me to hang around the house if he was going to be asleep. Vampires slept like the dead. Once they were gone they were gone for good. So I followed him to the bedroom and got in the shower. By the time I was done he was asleep and the shutters were shut, making me feel more claustrophobic than the dark of night ever did.
I got dressed in training clothes and left the house on my motorbike. When I got to the gym I dialed C
arl’s number. I would have just stopped by his house if I knew where it was, but no one ever knew where he lived. The first time I knew anything more about Carl than he let on – which was practically nothing at all – was when I’d gone to Fort Atkinson to bail him out of jail, and I’d been able to dig into some personal records.
The only thing I’d really learnt there was that you really never knew a person.
“Do you know what time it is?” Carl asked when he finally answered the phone. His voice was thick with sleep and he sounded annoyed.
“After sunrise sometime,” I said. “Want to meet up?”
“Yeah, I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Oh.” That wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all. Sometimes I had to beg Carl to see him, and most of the time when that happened I just left it. “About what?”
“I’ll come to the gym later.”
“It sounds serious,” I said.
“It is.” He hung up without giving me any more information. I groaned and slipped the phone into my pocket.
Chapter 2
He appeared just before lunch, as promised. Phil and I were in Phil’s office, going over training schedules. When Carl appeared in the doorway Phil drew up his eyebrows. He didn’t really like Carl. He hadn’t ever really liked him, but they’d joined forces to save me and the mess I’d made once long ago, and now they tolerated each other because you didn’t survive death together and hold onto something as petty as dislike.
“I’m here to take Adele to lunch,” he said to Phil like he had to give us permission. Phil looked at me. We were in the middle of a discussion. But the look on Carl’s face was enough to get me to nod and turn to Phil.
“I have to go. We’ll talk about all this later.”
Phil started to protest but I walked out of the office and followed Carl out of the Martial Arts Academy and into the sunlight.
“You talk to your boss like that?” he asked when he got to his car. I eyed it. It was an ugly, off-white Volvo. I never knew where he got his cars, or what happened to them when he left.
“He’s more like a partner. And he’s not my dad, I don’t have to ask for permission to do stuff. He pays me but because of me his gross income has doubled.” I shrugged.
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