by Bill Blume
Grandpa hobbled forward. His cane cracked against the linoleum floor as he went to the far side of the conveyor for a better look at Gidion’s kills.
“Two? You went after two of them without even fucking telling me? Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
“I was only expecting there to be one of them, and I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” He managed to glare at Grandpa’s face as he said that, but the fury he met there sent his eyes retreating to stare at the old man’s grip on the foam handle of his cane. He realized too late that what he’d said hadn’t helped his argument.
“Just fucking brilliant.” He hobbled around the conveyor to the same side as Gidion. “You look me in the eyes when I’m talking to you!”
“Whoa!” Gidion backed up, less from intimidation and more from the stink of whatever the hell was on his Grandpa’s breath. “Are you drunk?”
He regretted the question the instant it was in the open.
“I’ve had a drink, but that doesn’t make me fucking drunk.” Gidion recognized the slur to Grandpa’s voice, though. No, he wasn’t plastered yet, but he was definitely halfway up the exit ramp. “Didn’t have time to finish the beer I’d started before the alarm company called me.”
Gidion held in a curse. He’d been so shaken when he got here that he’d forgotten to disarm the alarm system. Grandpa had the system set for silent. He would have noticed it going off otherwise.
“Are you listening to me?” Grandpa slammed down the end of his cane with another loud crack.
“I made the kill. I admit I screwed up, got in over my head, but I made the kill.” He emphasized those last words and forced himself to keep eye contact with Grandpa.
“Oh, never mind then, because that makes everything so fucking, grade-A, happy hunky dory, doesn’t it? You made the kill, and then what was your plan, Einstein? Were you gonna use a cigarette lighter to—?”
The sudden silence as he looked at the cremator was worse than the tirade. Grandpa pushed Gidion out of the way with his cane. He didn’t hit him with it, just directed him to move, but the feel of that cane pressed against the side of his arm wounded his spirits. Grandpa stepped closer to the control panel and his gaze moved up and down the readings for the afterburner chamber temperature and main chamber temperature.
“Get out.” The calm in his voice was unsettling. Gidion couldn’t decide if he preferred that Grandpa didn’t turn around to look at him. Something told him the look in the old man’s face wouldn’t be something he’d soon forget.
“Grandpa?”
“Just get the fuck out of here.”
Gidion zipped up the suitcases and rolled them out. Grandpa didn’t move, but as Gidion got into the hallway, he heard him mutter, “Thought I was done with this bullshit when your dad quit hunting.”
He wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, not that he couldn’t make some educated guesses. Hell, he couldn’t decide if Grandpa even meant for him to hear it. Only thing he knew was that he shouldn’t ask about it—not now and probably not ever.
Chapter Eight
After going home to shower off the blood from his kills, Gidion drove back to the hotel to dispose of GQ Drac’s van. That was a tedious mess that involved finding a place to hose away all of the blood inside it and then dumping it. The latter part turned out to be much simpler than usual. He just parked it in one of the nearby apartment complexes. Tow companies patrolled the apartments and towed cars from those lots all the time. Come morning, GQ Drac’s van would be rotting in a tow lot. He cut through the woods to get back to his car at the hotel. Thankfully, he didn’t run into the middle of any gunfights this time.
He made it home a little after eleven, beating Dad by more than an hour. They didn’t even cross paths until it was time to get ready for church the next morning. Because Dad usually went straight to bed after work, they only made it to church on the Sunday mornings when Dad hadn’t worked overnight. Dad’s “weekends” rotated. He’d once tried to explain to Gidion how the schedule worked. The only thing Gidion understood afterwards was that government operations were confusing. All that meant was that their appearances at church were more of a “seasonal” event.
When they got home from church, the answering machine was blinking. Dad played the message, and as soon as Gidion heard Grandpa’s voice, he retreated upstairs and closed the door to his room. He didn’t catch all of Grandpa’s message. The few words he heard made it clear Grandpa wouldn’t be coming over to watch football.
“Gidion!”
He winced as he heard Dad call him. He cracked his door open and saw Dad walking up the stairs. “Yeah?”
Dad smirked at him. “Get changed. We’re going out to watch the game.”
Gidion smiled, as much from relief that Dad wasn’t going to interrogate him as he was excited at the prospect of what Dad had planned. Less than a half hour later, they’d made it to Carytown and found a spot at the bar at Burger Bach. The place was decorated in wood and metal and soaked with the smell of grilled red meat that promised plenty of good eats to clog the arteries.
The bartender, a woman in a black t-shirt, placed a tall glass of apple cider in front of Dad and a bottle of cream soda in front of Gidion.
“Still got an hour before kickoff.” Dad pointed at the TV, one of four behind the bar, showing all the pregame hype for the NFC Championship. “Be a shame if you got ‘sugar drunk,’ and I have to drag you home.”
“Funny, Dad.” Gidion chugged half the bottle just to be a smart ass. “Real funny.”
He still remembered the first time Dad had taken him to a bar when he was ten. The “sugar drunk” line had been his joke, but Dad had been happy to remind him of it ever since. Truth be told, he still thought it was funny, but the “Teen Code” demanded he pretend to give Dad grief about it.
The experts on TV were debating the Saint’s chances of beating the Packers when Dad blindsided Gidion.
“So what did you do to tick off your grandpa?”
Dad sipped his drink with all the satisfaction of a wildcat that had a mouse caught by the tail in his claws.
Gidion straightened his back to compensate for the difference in height, not that it amounted to much of an improvement. “Who says he’s ticked at me? Could be you.”
“Oh, it’s not me.” Dad didn’t bother to watch Gidion to study if he was lying. He turned to focus on the football coverage. “Ol’ Sailor Murph wouldn’t bother calling. He’d make me call him to find out why he wasn’t there if it was my fault.”
Gidion grunted, not that Dad would hear it. An ass warmed every chair in the place. Even with people chowing on fries and burgers, all the chatter was deafening.
“It’s the Sunday of the NFC and AFC championships, and your grandpa doesn’t own a TV.” Dad hit him with his cop interrogation stare over the rims of his glasses with his fingers rapping on the bar top. Crap. He wasn’t gonna let this go. “So?”
Then Gidion remembered Grandpa’s exact words from last night.
“Apparently, nothing you haven’t done before.” Gidion crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Yeah, take that shot Dad.
“Oh, really? What makes you so sure of that?”
“Because he said,” Gidion dipped into what he liked to think was a better imitation of Grandpa than Dad could do, “Thought I was done with this bullshit when your dad…” Gidion froze for a split second. Holy crap! He’d nearly finished the last two words of that, the part where Grandpa said dad had “stopped hunting.” Gidion waved his hand in the air as if to blow the thought away. “Not sure what the rest of it was, but by that point I’d been dismissed. Figured it was better to get out of there while I could and not ask him to repeat whatever he’d said.”
“Probably so.” Dad stared at him with that expression that insisted Gidion was full of it and that anyone with even one lonely brain cell limping into an open grave would know it. “This have anything to do with you oversleeping yesterday?”
Gidion had to fight down
a smile as Dad all but gift-wrapped his way out of this mess. God bless parents who think they know everything.
“Yeah, he was less than thrilled about that.”
“Can’t be doing that.” He drew out the last word in that tone that said Gidion knew better. “You’re his grandson. If he doesn’t come down on you for breaking the rules, the other people working there are going to resent you and not respect your grandpa.”
“I know.” Lord, he had to get this off of him. “So, how was your date with my teacher?”
Dad rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a date. I was going with a bunch of people from work, and I didn’t want to go alone.”
Gidion could believe that, but this was the first time his dad hadn’t turned to him for his “plus one.” He didn’t want to press it too much, because he was actually proud of him.
“You kiss her?”
Okay, maybe he’d press just a little.
The question stopped Dad in the middle of lifting his glass for a sip. He set the glass down and fixed a look on him that would have scared a confession out of a serial killer. “No.” Then he turned away and the master detective stare crumbled. As he cleared his throat, he muttered, “She kissed me.”
“All right, Dad!” Gidion drummed his fists on the bar. Then he punched his dad in the arm and dipped back into his Grandpa impression. “That’s the Keep blood in ya’, boy!”
“Oh dear God!” Dad laughed and cringed at the same time. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“That’s what Grandpa said when he found out about my girlfriend kissing me the first time.” Gidion stopped laughing as he came within a breath of mentioning that the kiss had been after saving Tamara from a vampire. That was twice he’d nearly blown it, and in less than ten minutes. He drank his cream soda to keep himself from saying anything stupid.
He assumed filtering his life as a hunter would get easier, the idea that practice made perfect. The reverse was proving true. The longer he did it, the harder it was not to say anything. He was hunting four nights a week. The hours it made up in his life were adding up. At first, he’d been able to confide in Grandpa, but that was a bust. He’d had Tamara, too, but these days, she was more likely not to answer his texts than respond. When she did text or email, it was usually while he had his phone off and was in class.
“Do me a favor,” Dad said. “Don’t let your teacher know I told you that.”
“Ms. Aldgate’s a pretty cool lady, though. Isn’t she?”
Dad nodded. “Yeah, but even I have to admit that I probably shouldn’t have asked her to go with me like that. If you don’t do well in her class, that could get awkward real fast.”
“I got your back. Last test, I had the highest grade in the class. I’m even doing better than Andrea.”
Dad covered his mouth, not that it did anything to hide the amusement on his face. “How is ‘Batwoman’ doing these days?” That was Dad’s nickname for Andrea, who was dating Gidion’s best friend. The nickname had stuck ever since Gidion had gone with her to the Zombie Walk back in October. She’d dressed up as a zombified Batwoman. The only reason Gidion went was to hunt two vampires. He’d learned the pair was going to take part in the walk to feed on some of the participants. Andrea didn’t know all that, but when she found out he was going, she’d drafted him into taking pictures of her during the Walk. Seth normally would have done it, but he was stuck at work that night.
“She’s doing fine. We’re meeting tomorrow after school to study for a quiz on World War II.”
“Well, don’t stay out too late,” Dad said after their hamburgers arrived. “I’m doing an evening-midnight double, so I’ll probably be gone before you get home. I want a text when you get there.”
Gidion was busy eying the best place to attack his burger as he answered. “I will.”
He definitely wanted to get home early. He’d been dying to get a crack at his vampires’ laptops, but the risk of Dad catching him with a strange laptop had forced him to wait. He’d found all sorts of useful intelligence digging through his previous kills’ recovered cell phones. God only knew what he’d find in those laptops.
His brain kept going back to the way GQ Drac had tried to take his picture and then ran. That wasn’t the way a vampire responded when confronted with a hunter, and he hoped the laptop might contain some answers.
Chapter Nine
During lunch, Gidion and his friends preferred to hang out in West Chester High’s courtyard. They had a favorite place in one of the round benches where they’d sit, eat, and talk, but winter complicated things. Cold days only offered three choices to keep warm: the cafeteria, the gym, and the library.
With Monday’s high only making it up to forty-two degrees, Gidion was more than in favor of abandoning the courtyard. The wind, which the tall bushes ringing the benches did nothing to block, threatened to freeze off one of his limbs or accelerate the chattering of his teeth until they bit off his tongue.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Seth said as they retreated into the library.
“So says the first person through the door.” Andrea cleared her throat to make it clear she was not pleased. “Chivalry is truly dead.”
Gidion considered pointing out to her that he’d held the door for them but thought better of it. He’d learned not to provide Andrea with a second target when Seth had already placed himself at the end of her firing range.
Seth was just pissed they hadn’t gone to the gym. He was playing on the school’s basketball team these days, and he enjoyed showing off his skills. Seth got outvoted by Andrea, because you handled women the same way droids did Wookies. Let the woman win.
“Half the school must be in here.” Seth didn’t seem to realize saying that was equivalent to slapping a “shoot me” sign on his back.
Gidion slipped past the domestic brewing between the lovebirds to hunt for a space to sit. Finding a place for all three of them had dropped to a secondary priority. Just ten minutes into lunch, they’d already waited too late to find a table. All of the books were shelved on the first floor. That left little room for tables and chairs, especially when this place had reached the “standing room only” stage.
He searched for a place to sit on the floor along the rows of books, but that turned out to be a waste of energy. One row in the 900s was completely blocked by a pair of seniors French kissing near the European history books.
Thankfully, no one was going for the same kind of irony when Gidion reached the biology books in the 500s. He ran into Seth instead.
“No luck?” Seth pointed in the direction Gidion had come from.
“If the bookshelves stood a little lower, people would be lying on top of them.” Gidion looked past him. “Where’s Andrea?”
“Checking the comfy chairs.” Seth didn’t need to point out the odds against one of those seats becoming available.
“You see the latest issue of Green Lantern?” They used to meet every Saturday at the comic book shop, but ever since their friend Pete had died, they’d rarely met there. Seth had even given up his pull box.
They never directly mentioned Pete these days, and the last time they’d met at Richmond Comix, Gidion had felt nothing but guilt. Seth didn’t know what really happened to Pete, how he’d gotten involved with the local coven of vampires. The vampires had turned him into a servant addicted to small tastes of vampire blood. Gidion thought he could save Pete, but freeing his friend from the vampires didn’t stop Pete from killing himself. The fear of the withdrawals and whatever other “demons” Pete had taken from the experience had driven him to turn a gun on himself. Any conversation about Pete made Gidion feel worse, because he and Seth could never have an honest conversation about what happened.
“Green Lantern? No, I had to give them up. Just can’t spare the money these days.” Seth checked over his shoulder before he added, “Be glad your girlfriend lives in another state.”
“At least you get to make out with yours.”
Seth didn’t bother
hiding his grin as he asked, “You two ever…you know, while doing the video chat thing?”
“Uh, no.” He held up his hands as if to push the idea away. “And, nasty.”
“Too scared to ask her to try it, huh?”
Gidion sighed. “Pretty much.”
Seth didn’t bother to spare Gidion’s dignity and laughed loud enough to get a dirty look from a few people actually here to study.
“Yeah, laugh it up. Let’s see how far you get this weekend, oh Great Slayer of Chivalry.”
Seth stopped laughing, but he had this knowing smirk. “Oh, I’m not worried about my chances this weekend.”
“More details than I want or need, dude.”
Seth pulled out his phone. “Still have more than half of lunch left.”
“I’m gonna check upstairs. You?”
Seth waved off the idea. “On a day like this? I’ll leave you to that.”
Just before Gidion could head for the stairs, Seth stopped him. “Gid, wait! I need a favor.”
“What’s up?”
Seth glanced over his shoulder again. “You know how you’re always asking for me to help cover you with your dad?”
Gidion felt his body go rigid. Several times, since he’d started hunting vampires, he’d asked his friends to provide an alibi so he had an excuse to be out late hunting. Technically, none of them had ever had to lie to Dad for him, but they’d agreed to. What made him nervous was that Seth was bringing it up.
“Technically, I’ve only done that a few times, not that often.” The protest sounded weak, even to himself. “What about it?”
“Would you mind doing the same for me? I gotta do something tonight. If anyone asks, and I mean anyone, I just need you to say we did something like go to a game night at One-Eyed Jacques.”
“Sure, what’s the game they’re doing tonight?”
The question made Seth blink. “Um…” Gidion guessed he hadn’t thought this through yet.