The Vampirists

by R. G. Nelson

  “I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire,” I repeat to myself silently, trying to psyche myself up for the task ahead.

  I try to remember how it was when we had our previous encounter, the pleasure of pinning him, the way it felt as he struggled uselessly against me. It works–I feel my fangs begin to poke at my gums as they remember the sensation of smelling his neck. Tonight, they will not be denied.

  I wait until I think the guy is far enough down into the alley that no stray eyes will be able to see us. The fact that the nights are still brisk should help to keep the numbers of people strolling around down. So I pull up while still a little distance away and call out to him.

  “I thought you promised to quit,” I say, startling myself with the natural menace that comes out in my tone.

  He turns, surprised. He sees me take shape out of the cloud of frozen exhaust and surprise becomes shock. I can only imagine what this looks like to him. It would be like one of those scenes in a movie where you swear you are alone, but suddenly you turn to find there’s a monster standing behind you.

  “Jesus! What the–”

  “Even he can't save you now,” I say, cutting him off as I blur toward him. He doesn’t even have time to reach back for his pistol before I am on him and my fangs are in him.

  I cover his mouth with one hand and hold him tight. The process becomes automatic; I’ve given myself over to the vampire in me. My eyes are open as I pull the first few swallows deep inside. From a single dim light bulb somewhere above, I can see his faint shadow struggling against mine on the pavement nearby. Blood begins to trickle across it as his resistance grows feebler. I close my eyes and drink on.

  It’s everything I hoped for, and more. It’s like the same great taste as with Hailey, but somehow different … sweeter. Maybe it’s the fact that he is still trying to land weak blows against me. It makes me feel like I won something … or more like I earned it. I also sense his increasing hopelessness; it spurs on the predator in me. It gives me an extra thrill, a thrill that flavors his blood. I’m sure that somewhere in me there’s a part objecting to this … that’s telling me how wrong it is. But right now I can’t focus on anything but how scary good it is, too. A vampire could get used to this.

  * * *

  I hustle out of the alley in a hurry. My ears are still ringing loudly, but I can feel my healing abilities kicking in. I rush over to where Jesús has the car waiting with the engines on. Just as I reach for the door, it pulls away abruptly with a screech of the tires. What the hell?

  I’m not sure if this is a test or something, but it’s a really bad time. The two gunshots might have started to draw an unwanted audience, and the antics with the car won’t help. I’m worried about being spotted from nearby windows. I didn’t bother to cover my face earlier, a decision that I’m regretting now.

  Fortunately, I see the car stop a little up the road. I guess they are just messing with me. I jog up the street cautiously, trying to seem casual as I’m aware that I may be being observed. Hopefully people will just think we are teenagers out having a good time. Maybe they’ll even explain away the noise as fireworks. Maybe.

  As I near the door, Jesús pulls away again. I hear laughter from inside and can see Vera and Mike looking out the back window at me. It would be funny if I hadn’t just left a dead body in the alley half a block away. I also don’t think I was the cleanest of first-timers; I’m pretty sure there must be blood on my clothes. Now would be a good time to get clear of the area!

  They continue to accelerate away this time, turning right at the end of the next block. I’ve been following at a slow pace and have a sickening feeling in my stomach as I realize that I won’t be able to catch up while maintaining a human façade. Maybe this is the real exam: see if I have what it takes to escape the scene and avoid capture like vampires of yore. Fortunately, this block has an alley, too. I duck inside and make a quick check around before turning on the vampire speed.

  I emerge from the alley onto the next road over and see their car coming down toward me. Gotta love super-speed. I duck behind a parked car and wait till they are close. At the right moment, I jump out in front and put my hands out as they come to a screeching halt in front of me. I have to hop back a few steps, but they come to a stop in time so that I don’t really have to use my healing abilities tonight. Amazing the risks you’ll take when you know you can’t be seriously hurt.

  From inside, there is more laughter and cheering. I start to smile in spite of myself and hold a finger up to caution them against driving on again as I make my way toward the rear door. Vera pops it open, I guess to show that they are done having their fun. I slip inside and shut it behind me. I put my best annoyed face on and attempt to give them crap.

  “Not funny people. Really. Are you guys sixteen years old?” I scold.

  “Oh, come on. It was funny,” Mike says, leaning out from behind Vera’s smiling shape.

  “Just … whatever. You know there’s a lot more police around these days,” I say, instantly giving up as their celebratory mood infects me.

  From the front, Hamad turns back with a serious look on his face. “You take care of it?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I respond. “Made it look like a robbery. Two shots: covered the bite marks. Used his gun, then got rid of it.”

  “Atta boy! Let’s take this celebration back to your place!” Jesús yells as he turns the blaring music up even louder.

  Mike gives an enthusiastic yell and then turns to Vera, “Hey, do you think Laney will be there?” Unfortunately, just at this moment Hamad decided to turn the music back down, so Mike’s voice came across super loud and clear. In the awkward half-silence that fills the car afterward, Mike looks as if he is going to re-die of embarrassment. We all burst out laughing at his obvious discomfort.

  “Coño, I swear I can’t take it if another one of you starts dating. You guys turn into disgusting mush,” Jesús intones with mock exasperation from the front.

  “Oh, Mike, I think it’s sweet. You should stick with it. Slow and steady wins the race,” chimes in Vera.

  “Gentlemen and lady, sorry to interrupt this fascinating line of discussion, but I have a small surprise,” Hamad says. He pulls out cups and a plastic bottle of … blood? “Homemade sparkling blood,” he explains. He fills up a few cups and passes them around. “We toast. To Adam!”

  I’m all smiles as I look around at everyone. It’s a good feeling. A feeling of belonging. Of being myself and being accepted for it. As if they are reading my thoughts, the group gives a new toast.

  “Welcome to the family!” echoes around our small circle as we kill the first round of drinks.

  Even Hamad is smiling. “You're a true Vampirist now, bro. There's no going back.”

  * * *

  We’ve been snuggling for what seems like ages in the eternal darkness of Vera’s room. Our room. At some point, I feel the giddy magic wearing down a bit, and thoughts about the Movement begin to creep back into my head. I try to hold off on talking shop for as long as I can, but eventually I turn over and look at Vera.

  She can sense my gaze and opens her eyes to peer into mine. As always, I get the feeling that she is looking past them … into me … trying to figure out the questions that lurk behind them. But tonight I’m just going to make this easy on her. There are things that I’ve been wanting to know for a long time now (and others that have only just begun to gnaw at my brain). I start with what I hope to be the easy one.

  “So what's a Vampirist?” I ask. Hamad mentioned this earlier, but I don’t think I ever heard anyone say this around me before.

  She smiles. “We are,” Vera says. She pulls out her wrought-iron medallion from a nearby drawer. I’ve seen it previously, but she doesn’
t wear it nearly as often as guys like Hamad and Jesús. I have to admit, I’ve never even really looked closely at it before. It was always kind of a foreign object to me because it represented something I wanted very little part in, a reminder of a divide between me and my Ver-bear. In fact, it always seemed kinda creepy or even sinister. Now I regard it closer, examining its three letters, M,V,T, and wondering what this has to do with the question I just posed.

  “Look, to the outside world, even to the humans we use, this stands for the Movement.” No kidding. That’s what they’ve always told me. M.V.T. equals Movement; I get it. Vera continues on as she flips the medallion over, “But from the inside, it means something different.”

  The letters flip over perfectly around their vertical axis, presenting a mirrored version. I read them aloud now, “T, V, M.”

  “Yeah, exactly,” Vera confirms. Then when I give her a questioning look, she explains, “TVM: The Vampirist Militia.” I take the medallion from her and look it over with new curiosity. “You'll get one, too, now. Now that you’ve proved yourself.”

  She says it like it’s good news, but I still don’t even understand what this militia really is. “Okay, but how's it different from the Movement?”

  “The Movement is just our outside face. It’s like a political party or organization that we created to help us achieve our agenda,” she explains.

  “The Movement doesn’t really behave like any reasonable political party I know,” I assert.

  “Fair enough, but throughout history many political parties have been started this way in other countries. As movements similar to ours,” she says. “Well, maybe a little different,” she admits, with a twinkle in her piercing, undead eyes.

  I see her main point, though. I think back to what happened in the Middle East during the Arab spring or the revolutions in former Soviet bloc countries. But these things haven’t always ended well.

  So feeling a bit argumentative, I counter, “Yeah, like the Nazis.”

  “Look, what do you want me to say? I’m not going to debate you. The Vampirist Militia does what we think we have to. And we use the Movement to help do it. But you should understand that we're not really about fighting corrupt human governments and companies. Well, we are actually, sort of. But it’s more than that.”

  “I guessed as much. I’ve been asking you this question since we met,” I remind her. “I can’t understand why vampires would care so much about the anti-establishment crap Joseph always peddles.”

  “Well, now I can tell you. And it’s not crap. It’s very important to us. We’re freedom fighters. All this is–all we do … it’s about making our world, the vampire world, free and safe.”

  “Safe from what?” I ask, confused.

  “From humans,” Vera says with a touch of exasperation.

  “And are we in very much danger from humans?” I’m not really sure that I understand her. I can run ridiculously fast, jump across rooftops, survive a gunshot and hear a heartbeat over half a block away if I really concentrate. As a human I may not have been much, but I’m pretty sure I now could take on any MMA fighter or professional boxer easily. Even a heavyweight. Even if he had a silver stake in his hand. So, unless the humans are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us, I don’t see what we really need to worry about. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if a WMD would do it, though I suppose a direct hit would take us apart at the molecular level.

  Vera takes my hand, as if to reinforce the gravity of what she’s about to say. “In the 1800's when I turned, there were no thermal scanners, no DNA analysis, no satellites … nothing that could expose us. Now companies and governments can track our movements and communications without us even knowing.” She begins to really get worked up. “What would happen if their facial recognition technology picked up on the fact that we look the same 30 years from now as we do today? What if they discover us and start using UV lights everywhere? What if they figure out where we spend the day and come for us in daylight armed with automatic weapons and silver bullets?”

  I kiss her hand gently to calm her down. To let her know I see her point. Because I do. “You should be proud, Adam. As a bloodshirt you are on the front lines for the militia. You are our security, our muscle. You help make us safe. Help make me safe.”

  She stops quickly and looks almost embarrassed she got so emotional. “Sorry,” my Vera says. “I’ve told you that before I joined this … I just survived. Some of the vampires I knew along the way didn’t.” I pull her close and stroke her hair to comfort her.

  I see now that she has nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m actually embarrassed that I didn’t pick up on how dangerous humans could be right away. I guess I got so caught up in my own newfound sense of power and superiority that I underestimated the enemy. I wouldn’t be the first to fall victim to that.

  With a shock, I realize that I’m thinking of humans as the enemy. Even though I was one less than a year ago. Even though my dad still is. But are they? I can guess that they wouldn’t like vampires very much if they knew about us, but would there really be no way to avoid becoming blood enemies? I hope we never have to find out.

  “Thank God they still don't know about us. It's a miracle,” I say.

  “God has nothing to do with it,” Vera says, taking me literally. “It's the militia's work. So far we've been working to put vamps in positions of power and to disrupt human research while advancing our own. We even have our own scientific team led by a researcher we converted–Dr. Metz. He’s a bit of a recluse, but you’ll probably meet him soon. We’re all headquartered here in the US since this has been the main source of human innovations over the past few hundred years, but it’s really a global effort.”

  I don’t want to be negative, but it seems an impossible task to stop the pace of technological innovation. “But with the rate of human advancement, don’t you think it might be too little, too late?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want to upset her again.

  “Look, it may be. But Joseph says there are big plans in the works.” She sounds a little defensive, maybe even wounded that I’m not more enthusiastic about her big revelation to me.

  So I decide to change the subject. “Ver-bear, I've got some big plans. For us. Right now,” I say as I roll her over on top of me.

  She starts to laugh her enchanted peal as she begins to tease me, “Are you sure they're big? Not average-sized? Small-to-medium even?”

  “Don't you dare–” I begin, but then I’m lost in her arms.

  * * *

  I’m surprised that when my cell takes me to be presented to Joseph the next night, we end up parking in front of a seedy-looking restaurant in Chinatown and not at the port. We go inside, and the smells of roasting duck and pork almost overwhelm my powerful senses. Not for the last time, I’m sure, I’m reminded of how far from human I am as what would have once maybe smelled delicious to me is now just another scent, albeit a strong one in this claustrophobic environment. It has no appeal to me now, kind of like when I’d smell food after already being full as a human. Not that I’d want to eat here if I were human. It seems like the kind of place where some extra protein might end up in your dish. The six-legged kind.

  We pass through the small front seating area and go through a worn door marked “Employees Only.” After walking down a hallway and getting buzzed through another, more serious-looking security door, we enter a fairly large back area that appears to have been set up as some sort of make-shift set of offices. I can tell by the way they take it in that my teammates have never been here either, although I guess Hamad must have been given directions.

  Joseph’s voice calls out to us from within one of the small offices. We go in past the vamp manning the door. As much as we come around, these vamps never seem to tr
eat us as friends, only as potential foes. I guess Joseph must like them like that. I’ve heard that he is close to 1,000 years old; I’m thinking he didn’t reach such an age by being careless.

  Inside, Joseph rises to greet us. “Welcome, gentlemen,” he says, waving his arms to indicate our new surroundings.

  “I like the new place. FBI find the old one?” Hamad asks with his smirk.

  “It’s temporary, and no, we’re just being cautious. Some Special Agent was starting to take too much of an interest in the port. With our level of night traffic, they thought it would just be a matter of time before he did pin down our base,” Joseph responds. “It’s a shame. I actually quite liked the ship. Being on water always gives one an easy escape if anything should go wrong. Alas, we all have bosses, and with bosses come orders.”

  I glance at the others to see if they are surprised by this; of course, they aren’t. But I’ve never really thought of Joseph as having a boss. I guess he did mention that he was just a city head, so it makes sense that there is someone above him. Still, I’ve never really heard anyone mention other leaders; until now, Joseph seemed to be firmly the king of this castle.

  “And so now we are here while we prepare a new base. I have Tomas and his cell out scouting already,” Joseph continues.

  “At least Chinatown is so accommodating,” Hamad points out.

  “Yes, quite. For a surprisingly small fee, they ask no questions,” Joseph responds, smiling. He pauses for a moment, then opens up a drawer and pulls out a Movement medallion identical to the ones the others have.