The Vampirists

by R. G. Nelson

  “That’s true. I see here you suddenly dropped off the radar a few years ago. But not long enough for your records to be sealed,” Taylor continues. He flicks through the file in his hand. “And we both know someone like you doesn’t suddenly go clean. You just got smarter. Or got smarter friends.” Taylor hesitates to let this sink in.

  Jesús only shrugs his shoulders and starts to examine his nails as if they are the most interesting thing in the room.

  Taylor isn’t buying it. “We know you're connected with the Movement,” Taylor declares, suddenly pounding his hands on the table, perhaps trying to catch Jesús off-guard.

  “How perceptive, puta,” Jesús returns, nodding to indicate his partially exposed “MVT” chest tattoo.

  “We know you aren’t like the others being held downstairs. They’re all just kids out for a good time before moving on and finishing college. But you …” and here Taylor drops his voice before pausing for dramatic effect, “you’re one of the bad ones. One of the true fanatics. You drop off the grid, fly under the radar, and … do what?”

  “You tell me. You seem to have it all figured out,” Jesús taunts.

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You're gonna tell us everything you know. We want names of the bombers, faces, locations, and we want them now. Or son, we're gonna lock you up and throw away the key. You'll never see the light of day again.”

  Jesús just smiles. I can tell that Agent Taylor is bothered that he isn’t having more of an effect. Hamad and I continue watching; though we are pressed for time, we both realize that we should find out how much the government knows. I enthrall McKenzie and command him to guard the door and make sure that no one disturbs either of our rooms.

  “You need to take this serious, son. If you don't play ball, your life as you know it will end right here, right now.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Jesús responds slyly.

  Taylor pauses, considering. And then he changes track. “I like that tattoo you have on your back. Pentagram, is it? Nice. Classy,” he says. “Only, it’s funny, because we've found the same one carved on dozens of victims over the past five years. Victims that have been missing blood. In fact, you’d be surprised how many bodies show up missing blood.” At this, he throws a bunch of police photos across the table. I can make out various crime scene and morgue photos: gruesome images really, even considering my vampire nature. I can’t help but start to freak out about my own kill. Is the body I dropped in that alley somewhere in the mess of photos on the table?

  Taylor yells at Jesús from across the table. Too bad he is too far away for Jesús to enthrall. “So what are you? Some kind of twisted occult terrorists? You use blood in some sort of ritual? What’s your big plan? Call up the dark powers to help you bring down the government?”

  Jesús stares at the pictures for a while, apparently ignoring Taylor’s outburst. “Nice photography. You take those all by yourself?”

  Taylor sags a bit in resignation. He appears to have given up on breaking Jesús easily. “It's gonna be a long night for you, son.”

  “It always is.” Jesús grins like a crocodile, showing his teeth. Even without his fangs showing, he looks sinister.

  Sensing a break in the conversation, I have McKenzie let Hamad and me into the interrogation room. I have just enough time to register the total shock on Taylor’s face at seeing me here, like this, before Hamad is in front of him, pupils dilating away rhythmically.

  “If you could be so kind as to release him,” Hamad suggests in a soft voice. Agent Taylor moves to undo Jesús' handcuffs.

  “'Bout time you guys showed up. I was starting to worry,” Jesús admits.

  “Sun won't be up for an hour or two yet,” I assert.

  Hamad ignores Jesús’ complaint. “You were sloppy for getting caught,” he scolds.

  “There was a whole squad of cops that showed up and surrounded us. I was with humans–pigs must have been watching them. I couldn't blow my cover, now could I? And I was never alone again until they put me in here, so I had no chance to escape.”

  “You should have been more careful. You put us all at risk,” Hamad declares.

  Jesús shrinks a little. “I was just hitting the streets to blow off some steam. And I knew you guys would come,” Jesús confesses.

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t blow our agent here in the process. He’s more valuable to us than your shenanigans,” Hamad concludes.

  Hamad locks eyes with McKenzie. “Take us both downstairs. I am his cousin; he is being released to me.”

  Jesús rubs his wrists, relieved to be free. He approaches the still dazed Taylor. “Say 'Oink, oink' like a pig,” Jesús enthralls.

  Agent Taylor emits a sound that imitates a pig: “Oink, oink.”

  Jesús laughs maliciously. I don’t know why, maybe it’s out of loyalty to my dad’s past, but it really bothers me. It’s scary how close Taylor is to connecting many of our crimes to us, but he doesn’t deserve to be mocked–just watched so that we can be sure he never makes the jump to there being vampires in existence.

  “Finished?” Hamad also seems annoyed with Jesús’ antics. “And in case you can't tell, he's FBI, not police. We have to be more careful.” And then he adds to me, “Adam, get the humans out. Meet us back at the front. I want to see what else these guys know.”

  I head downstairs and enthrall the cop down there to help me into the holding area. The place reeks of sweat and urine and worse: everything that is associated with very nervous humans in tight, cramped conditions. I don’t want to linger here long. At my command, the doors to the activists’ cells spring open with a rumble.

  I walk down the corridor and pause near the openings. The dozen or so human Movement activists are still huddled in the back, too timid to venture outside the now open doors. I gaze at them: Taylor was right. These are no hardened criminals, but soft youths one mocha latte away from a nervous breakdown.

  “Let’s go,” I order firmly.

  One guy I recognize as Franklin’s nerdy friend from meetings (his name is Stu, I think) starts to speak. “How'd you guys–”

  I cut him off, “The Movement has friends everywhere. Now move.”

  I keep a cop with us as we head back through the station to the front. I coached him on what to say before so that neither other police nor the activists would have their suspicions aroused. Hopefully all that the activists will suspect is that he is our guy inside, shifting focus from our real man. We reach the lobby, and I find Hamad waiting for us with McKenzie and Taylor. Jesús must already be in the van.

  They start to walk us out quickly, but we are interrupted by a receptionist that I barely noticed upon entering–mostly because at that point he barely noticed us. I guess our mass exit looks a lot more unorthodox than our entrance did. “What's going on?” he says to the cop at my side.

  Almost robotically, the cop automatically gives the prepared response, “Feds wanted them cut loose.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about that,” the receptionist asserts, flipping through some papers he has behind his station.

  I don’t want to have to do this, but I see no other choice. I glance at Hamad and he gives me the go ahead. I approach the receptionist and look deep into his eyes. “There's no problem here,” I say as I feel my influence penetrate into and take over his being.

  “Never mind, you’re all set. Go ahead,” the receptionist confirms.

  I hear audible gasps behind me from the activists. They must think I’m some sort of Jedi. Good thing we can sort out their own memories in the car. As I head out the door, I look at the blank-faced Taylor again. It’s a shame we can’t just sort out his situation through enthrallment. I have a bad f
eeling his competence and passion will lead him into direct conflict with us. And I know how the Vampirists deal with humans they see as real threats.

  With the young activists piling into the van, Hamad and I turn to McKenzie and the other cop still with us. “Make sure the security tapes are erased. Then forget everything that happened,” Hamad and I both order. While we had hoped to avoid having to have that done (missing tapes will look very suspicious), it’s the only way to cover up my actions in the lobby where cameras definitely record all the time. It may start a witch hunt for a Movement agent at the station, but hopefully Johnson will be able to help pin blame on these two police.

  Jesús honks impatiently at us from the driver’s seat of the van. I look through the wet windshield at him and wonder if he’s really internalized how close he came to causing a very bad situation for all of us. If we hadn’t gotten the news and been able to extract him in time, we would not only have lost yet another cell member, but also run the risk of exposure for all vampires.

  I notice the pitter-patter of drops on my clothes and look up to a darkened sky still full of thunderheads. Sometimes, when it rains, it pours.

  17)

  Needless to say, with Jesús’ stunt, vacation was ended. I guess Joseph thinks that it’s worse to leave us up to our own devices than have us performing our militia duties. Hamad even gives us a pep-talk, probably at Joseph’s behest. The gist of his speech is, “We’re all feeling the loss. But no more self-destructive stuff. We need to get back to the basics. Get back on mission.”

  So we do. I continue on hospital duty with Laney, despite how awkward it is without Mike being there. She still seems sad, which strangely makes me feel a bit contented that she hasn’t gotten over Mike right away. Vera gets permission to come along sometimes, which makes these assignments better, but still doesn’t replace the hole that we feel. Hamad, Jesús and I continue on other missions as well. With the warmer weather, the pace of events has really picked up. We haunt the rooftops and use our vantage points and mobile devices to steer and control the flow of protests, trying to avoid the law as much as possible–not to avoid conflict, but so that the protests can go on longer. On other nights, we have a very different task and instead use the roofs to quickly move around the city and film the worst of the police crackdowns for viral propaganda videos.

  We also trade off with the other bloodshirt cells to help provide security for Joseph, who continues to speak at big rallies that are organized at the last minute to prevent the authorities from finding out beforehand and showing up too soon. We even help move out of the temporary Chinatown headquarters to an abandoned factory in an old derelict industrial district. The area seems like the kind of place that boomed during the last World War and has been forgotten by most humans since. I can tell that my cell feels that moving duty should be beneath us, but vampires can carry a lot more weight and load trucks a lot faster than humans–a good thing when you are trying to sneak and not be noticed at night. Plus, I guess we can’t exactly book a moving company or even use the Movement humans; I think the new HQ is for the Vampirist Militia only.

  And then, of course, there are the other missions–the more violent ones. We’ve continued to collect from Tyrone and a few of the other street leaders (they’ve been toeing the line since my first run-in with them), but some in our network have started to have turf clashes with outsiders. Perhaps ironically, I find myself fighting on the side of those we once had to rough up. Such is Vampirist life, I guess.

  Tonight, though, our mission is very different. I’m driving (as seems to be my newfound role), so I can’t really look around the car and watch everyone as I used to, but I can sense Hamad’s tension. I sneak a glance over at his tight-lipped face as he exchanges texts in code with headquarters on a burner cellphone. He’ll dump it after tonight is completed, no doubt.

  “This is a priority-one assignment. And that’s straight from Joseph,” Hamad says, catching my curious glance.

  “If it’s so important, why doesn’t he give us another man?” Jesús argues from the back.

  “We’ve been over this. You know Joseph wants to hold off on recruiting a replacement,” Hamad answers testily.

  “Yeah, but he won’t say why,” Jesús points out.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Hamad returns. “That’s the whole point of a hierarchical chain of command.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever. Es mierda. This being one man down crap puts the rest of us at risk,” Jesús mutters. I peek in the mirror at the back seat, which is conspicuously empty except for Jesús. He stares moodily out his window; I can tell that he was really rocked by having one of us die and is still adjusting. I think it’s because Jesús has been around just long enough to get really used to being a vampire, but not long enough to have seen someone close lost before. So he’s in that awkward phase where he has felt invincible for a few years and is now suddenly forced to face his own potential mortality.

  Not to say that he’s too scared to go on missions (I doubt he’d miss the chance for action), but he is very conscious of us taking all appropriate steps to be as cautious as possible. Point in fact: Tonight he is suited up in Kevlar even though Hamad insisted that we didn’t need it. I didn’t wear it either, but maybe that’s because I haven’t been around for long enough to be too shocked at discovering we could die. So it’s not such a big adjustment for me. I mean, really, less than a year ago I was a fragile little human who could die from something so trivial as a car accident. Or choking on food. Or drinking too much alcohol.

  “You won’t be at risk tonight if we keep our heads on straight,” Hamad counters, snapping me back to the task at hand. “This is a simple knock and grab, but we grab the whole family. As we are a man down for now, be extra alert and control the situation.”

  “Just humans?” Jesús clarifies.

  “Just humans,” Hamad confirms.

  “What did they do?” I ask. I’m always interested in knowing what humans had to do to draw such unfortunate attention to themselves. I hope that they did something terrible, so I don’t have to argue with that little voice in the back of my head when I lie in bed at day replaying all my recent actions.

  I feel Hamad look over at me and stare hard. “Well, one of them apparently pissed Joseph off. Some hotshot scientist who won't play ball. He needs them for something we’re working on.”

  “Oh, cool,” I respond, trying to appear casual. Despite knowing that I’m a vampire, I’ve so far managed to limit the physical violence I inflict against humans to those I could potentially construe as evil doers in my head. You know, the drug dealers, the armed robbers … and I guess the political opposition (if I include the one time I had guard duty with that punk vampire Piotr). The last is a bit dubious, but it sure seems pretty par for the course in the political environment of the past few years or so to cast your opposition as evil.

  I don’t know if I’m fooling Hamad with my attempt to be blasé about the whole abduct an entire human family thing, so I concentrate really hard on what’s outside the windshield. The neighborhood that I’m driving through is a welcome change from the hectic city streets. The area has a definite homey, suburban feel to it, but it’s nicer than the surroundings where I grew up. These houses are bigger, the lawns are better maintained, and the cars parked in the driveways are far more expensive.

  It’s nighttime, of course, only unlike the urban streets, no one is out and about. Earlier, we were stuck a few times in heavy traffic blocked up by Movement demonstrations. Fortunately, while other cars had to pull u-turns and bail, once we reached the protest skirmish lines, a quick flash of Hamad’s ever-present medallion cleared our path. In contrast, here there are no protestors loitering about or tent cities corking up the avenues as there are in many areas of the city. In fact, there’s no evening bustle whatso
ever, which we are counting on as it’s only 11 p.m. Hamad said that we needed to go at this time to avoid arousing too much suspicion. I can see his point: No one opens up the door to a stranger at four in the morning.

  The GPS on the navigation system beeps to let me know that we are approaching our destination.

  “Go around back,” Hamad commands. I get the sense that this isn’t his first assignment like this. I’m not sure if that is comforting or disturbing.

  I turn the corner and pull into a dim, shadowy alley leading behind the row of houses. We are going for silence, but the crunch of gravel under our tires is almost deafening in my ears. I really hope human senses are a lot weaker than ours. Even being so young, I have a hard time remembering exactly what it felt like to be a human sensation-wise. I guess it’s like learning to ride a bike: Once you know how, you can’t really remember what it felt like not to be able to.

  I cut the lights before reaching the target house and then coast slowly to a stop behind their garage. “What now?” I ask.

  In response, Hamad tosses Jesús and me masks and pockets one for himself. “Put these on. We go in the front and bring them out the back to here. In and out in three minutes,” he commands. As an after-thought, he adds, “At the door, let me do the talking.”

  I nod and exit the car, looking around to make sure we are alone. We are–it helps that the houses are a bit more spread out here compared to the tight clusters found in city neighborhoods. We close the doors softly and then leap the backyard fence in a single bound. It would be dark here for humans, but I make out a well-manicured lawn and garden that speaks of money. The first set of spring flowers have passed their prime, but the multi-colored summer flowers have been well-timed to begin their floral show to balance. There is an arched trellis with grape vines growing, the buds of what will be early autumn fruit just now taking recognizable shape.