by N. P. Martin
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Neal Martin
Visit my website at www.npmartin.com
1
A Stranger Calls
BACK IN THE DAY…
I had been in Blackham City a total of ten and a half hours before there was a loud knock on the door of the brownstone that I was now to call home, all thanks to my uncle back in Ireland, who bought the building years before to use as a Sanctum. The old place was now mine apparently, and I was free to stay for as long as I liked.
I'd had enough of traveling at that point, and I was tired of moving from one city to the next, whether it was in Europe, Central Asia or South America (they all blended into one another after a while, the only thing that connected them being the loneliness I felt as I ghosted along from one to the other). I thought it time I put down some roots, lest I become that guy with perpetually itchy feet, always yearning to be somewhere else. Always thinking that a better, different future awaits him in the next place when all that really awaits is the same damn thing but with different surroundings.
So after hitting New York, Chicago, Los(t) Angeles and a few other American cities I don’t even care to remember the names of, there I was in Blackham City, a place so steeped in the desperation and misery of those who lived there, it would have made a fine backdrop for the darkest of noirs. “Give it time,” Uncle Ray said. “You’ll learn to love it as much as I did.”
Yeah right. Which was why dear old Uncle Ray was sitting in a grand Sanctum hidden away in the rolling hills of County Connemara in Ireland, with not a single soul or trace of sickening smog anywhere near him.
I’d say one thing, though. The old Sanctum was an interesting place inside. There were still stacks of old books lying around the place, and evidence of Ray’s magick practice in the form of symbols drawn everywhere, as well as a large magick circle drawn in red on the oakwood floor in the living room. Various empty jars and vials and small containers lay around as well, having once contained some magick infused potion or substance at one point. There wasn't much furniture, needless to say. A busted old leather sofa in the living room, a free standing lamp and a writing desk in the corner. That was it. The walls were a dull yellow color, and the plaster was cracked in many places also.
I didn't mind the aged, rundown appearance of the place, though. It gave it character. As long as I had somewhere to sit while I got drunk on the bottle of Glenfiddich I had bought from a local corner store an hour or so before, I was content enough. Indeed I was well on my way to getting blind drunk so I could sit and lament on the state of my life when the door was knocked by someone.
Who the hell could that be? No one knows I’m here.
Unless whoever it was thought Ray still lived there. Which he didn’t, not at that precise moment in time anyway, so the person knocking at the door could just go away as far as I was concerned.
Which they didn’t do, of course.
“Maybe Ray’s ordered me pizza,” I said to no one, completely comfortable that I was talking to myself and not feeling weird about it. Hey, you have to talk to someone when you’re traveling all alone in the world, right? Besides, I was a good listener, which I very much appreciated, especially when I was drunk (I’d heard it all from me, I tell you).
The bottle of whiskey was still in my left hand as I used my right hand to fumble with the three locks on the front door, which weren’t actually locks but magickal seals that I was a bit too drunk to focus on properly. “Three goddamn locks…Christ…there we go, at last." I opened the door, and it creaked on its hinges like the door to Count Dracula's castle (it's true, I'd been there). I even had my best Boris Karloff voice ready to go when I said, "Ye-e-e-ess?”
But when I saw who was standing there, my Boris Karloff voice was replaced by my Mickey Mouse voice instead, and I all but squeaked, “Yis?" because the person I was confronted with was not the person I expected. I don't know who I expected (a spotty pizza delivery boy maybe). Certainly not the platinum blond vision in white I was currently gawking at like a schoolboy with a hard-on.
"August Creed?" the gorgeous woman in the white skirt and shoulder-padded jacket said.
I frowned at the woman for a moment, thinking her jacket wouldn't look out of place on an American football player (stick a number on the back, and away you go). Her sparkling glamor was completely incongruous, given the neighborhood she was in. I hadn’t been there long, but East Oakdale was not Upper Manhattan or Sunset Boulevard. More like Brooklyn, I’d say. Certainly not the ideal surroundings for someone who wouldn’t have looked out of place on Dynasty. Parked on the road behind her was a black limo. A man in a dark suit with a wolfish stare stood by the front of the limo, hands clasped in front of him, his gaze firmly on me. Clearly, the woman had gotten the wrong address. It was the only explanation for her standing there.
But she knows my name.
There was that, of course. Didn’t have an answer for that one, unless Uncle Ray had sent her, which I wouldn’t have put past him.
Maybe she's a hooker, one of those high-class types.
I didn't think so. She was too beautiful but in an unconventional way. And her dark, chocolate colored eyes had too much knowing in them, too much experience. One thing is for sure, I thought as I couldn’t help but be captivated by her face. She is no Sleepwalker.
Supernatural power was in the woman's blood. I could almost smell it on her. A sweet sort of scent, yet laced with something sharper, and with more bite.
Her eyes looked deep into mine as she seemed to size me up. I noticed her nostrils raise almost imperceptibly as she tried to get a scent of me the way a predator would nose the air at their prey. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss…”
"Crow," the woman said, offering her hand. "Angela Crow, and yes, I hope there is something you can do for me, August Creed." She smiled after she said my name as if she liked what she saw, or maybe that was just me, and she was only being polite. The whiskey haze surrounding me made it difficult to tell.
I stood waiting for her to tell me why she was there. She didn't though. Instead, she stared for a moment and then said, "Well, aren't you going to invite me in?"
And that’s when I realized that Miss Angela Crow was a vampire.
2
The Vamp In White
Despite my travels over the previous six years, I would admit to having little or no contact with vampires. They were a mysterious lot, preferring, for the most part, to keep to themselves. As part of my education as a Mage, I was required to read the lore on every supernatural creature there was, including vampires, just in case I one day ran into one of them. Before leaving Ireland, I had no first-hand experience of any of those beings. Only the information I read in books, information which was often untrue and contradictory, depending on what text you were reading.
I did end up coming across many of those supernatural beings on my travels, though, and found almost all of them to be far more complex creatures, and much more human in many cases, than the textbooks often made them out to be. Not that this made them any less dangerous.
One night while I was walking along a Paris street early on in my travels, I came across a man in need of assistance. He was lying on the side of the road, seemingly injured, moaning in pain and asking for help. As no one else was around, I went to assist the man, at which point he sprang to his feet at frightening speed and grabbed me in a chokehold before dragging me into a side alley. It all happened so fast that I was caught completely off guard. Once in the alley, the man (who I knew was a vampire by that point) proceeded to sink his fangs into my neck and started gulping down my blood at an alarming rate like an alcoholic chugging from a bottle of spirits. For a long moment, all I could do was stand there in shock as the vamp continued to drain me. I must say, I found the whole experience to be deeply unpleasant, having a parasite attached to my neck
like that. It was a gross violation of my body, and it felt like I was being raped.
Then my survival instinct kicked in, and my magick activated, sending out a blast of energy that propelled the blood-drinker across the alley where he slammed into the wall so hard he caved in a number of bricks. I was as stunned as he was as I stared down at him, still dizzy from the blood loss and the shock of the whole situation, my adrenaline dumping like crazy.
When the vamp sprang up into a crouch, he hissed at me like a cornered animal with his fangs bared and dripping with my blood. Without even thinking about it, I formed a sphere of crackling blue energy in the palm of one hand and held it up as if to fire it at the hissing vamp, who then bared his blood stained teeth at me one final time before scurrying off on all fours like a scampering rat.
Needless to say, since that incident happened, I did my best to avoid all contact with vampires. I certainly didn’t trust them. Although I should thank that vampire in a way, because he helped me realize I could protect myself, and that I could rely on my magick to do so. Suddenly, that lifelong Mage apprenticeship of mine back in Ireland started seeming useful instead of just intellectually interesting.
Understandably then, I was a little reticent about inviting Miss Angela Crow into The Sanctum. But I was drunk and a bit tired of life by that point (to be perfectly honest with you), so I didn't care all that much about letting a vampire through the door. Besides which, she had sought me out, and I was somewhat interested in finding out why exactly, even though I knew it had to have something to do with Uncle Ray. There was also the fact that she was beautiful and alluring, and for a vampire, she gave off an enticing sort of scent that I found myself unable to resist.
"Thank you," she said as she walked through the door and past me into the hallway, slowly making her way into the living room, her heels clacking on the hard wood floor as she gracefully moved along. From behind, she was a lithe sort of creature with her white skirt stretched tight over her ass, which jiggled slightly when her heels made contact with the floor. I shook my head at some of the thoughts going through my mind at that moment and walked into the living room behind her. Then I stood and watched as she strolled around the room, running her long fingers over the covers of books, smelling the potion jars, smiling at the books stuck to the ceiling. "I've always liked this place. Haven't been here in a while, though. It's usually more…full when Raymond is here."
I knew it. What are you playing at Ray, cavorting with vampires?
“He shifted most of his stuff out when he heard I was coming here,” I said. “I think he’s hoping I’ll fill it back up with my own stuff.”
Angela Crow sat down in the armchair by the fireplace and crossed her legs. Then she sat staring at me until I sat in the other armchair. "So are you going to tell me why dear old Uncle Ray sent you here? If it's a sex thing, I'm not interested." I took a swallow from the bottle of whiskey still in my hand as if to underline my disinterest. Although it was more to do with disguising the fact that I was lying. Vampire or not, the woman was goddess-level beautiful. I didn't imagine any man would turn her down given a chance.
“You look like him,” she said, completely ignoring my last comment, making me feel like a fool for even saying it. “A lot younger obviously, but the features are the same. The strong chin, the high cheek bones. Your eyes are a darker shade of gray than his, though. More intense, I'd say. And that thick, dark hair, which surely must be a Celtic thing."
“Ray’s hair is gray now.”
She barely smiled. “Your youth is adorable.”
To my ears, the only thing missing from that sentence was, "…and I vant to drink your blawd.” You could say she made me a little nervous, sitting there like the apex predator that she no doubt was. Despite not looking out of her early thirties, I could still smell the centuries of age underneath her eternal youth. I also knew that the older the vampire, the more powerful they were. If I weren't half drunk, I would have been feeling more than a little uncomfortable, even threatened, under her steady gaze.
“Do I frighten you?” she asked, taking me by surprise.
I stared at her a moment, unsure of how to answer before shaking my head. "I'm just not sure why you're here. I only landed in this dump of a city about eleven hours ago. Forgive me if I seem a little put out by your visit. I was expecting to be alone so I could sit and drown my sorrows in this bottle."
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
The quickness of my answer didn't escape her, and she smiled that enigmatic smile again. "I intrigue you."
I smiled back. “How could you not?”
“Such charm,” she hit back, leaving me unsure if she was being sarcastic or not.
As alluring as she was, I still wanted to know the reason for her visit. What could someone like me—a lost and wandering magickslinger who still hadn’t gotten over seeing his whole family get massacred, and probably never would—have to offer someone like her, who likely had everything she ever wanted?
It turned out there was one thing she didn't have at that moment, though.
“I have a daughter,” she said. “And she’s gone missing. I want you to find her for me, August Creed.”
3
Vampire's Kiss
Angela Jordan's daughter was named Jennifer, and she was sixteen years old. After many centuries of living, Miss Angela Crow had obviously thought it high time that she had a kid, probably to carry on the bloodline. And by the way that she talked about her daughter, it was clear to me that Angela Crow considered her progeny to be not much more than a possession to be retrieved. A mere tool to be used to further her own aims, whatever those aims were. At that point, her motivations were unclear, except that she needed her flesh and blood back. There was also the fact that full-blooded vampires were quite a rarity in the world (most vampires being made, having been human once). That alone would have made Angela Crow’s daughter a valuable commodity.
What was clear, though, was the fact that Miss Crow had obviously attended the same school of parenting as my father. That was the problem with having great power at your fingertips, you see. It made you selfish and completely subservient to its needs and further development. Everyone else was only around to be used in this endeavor. My mother always taught me that people came first and that whatever power I had only existed so I could help others (Miss Crow and my father apparently skipped that lesson, or more likely, completely ignored it). And despite my father trying to ingrain in me the opposite, teaching that power and its gathering mattered most above all other concerns (including people), I usually managed to live my life by my mother's credo, and not by the philosophy my father tried so hard to indoctrinate me with while I grew up under his tutelage. Of course, there was also the fact that my father was a sociopath, which handily helped him ignore the feelings of others.
I suspected Miss Crow to be of the same ilk as my father, possessing the same sociopathy, if only by virtue of being a vampire. Vamps were not known for their bleeding hearts. They preferred to bleed the hearts of others instead.
"So let me get this straight," I said to Miss Crow after taking another swig from the bottle. "Your teenage vampire daughter has gone missing, and despite your probably vast reach and influence—not to mention bottomless resources—you come to me, a lowly magickslinger with no connections in this city and even less experience in finding people, and you want me to find your missing daughter?" I shook my head. "That doesn't make any sense to me at all, even if you did used to fuck my uncle.”
I probably shouldn’t have said that last part. Something flashed in Miss Crow’s eyes, breaking her former eerily calm demeanor, something like anger maybe.
Great. I’ve just gone and pissed off a centuries old vampire. Way to go, Creed.
“Your uncle was never this…disrespectful,” she said, a hint of malice in her voice now that made her seem more dangerous than before. “Even at your young age.”
Let’s see if I can claw this one
back before she claws me.
“I apologize for that last remark,” I said, holding my hands up. “I’m just jet-lagged and more than a bit drunk. I meant no disrespect.”
“Do you use hostility to cover your insecurities, August, is that it?”
“Hostility?” I was genuinely shocked. “Of course not. I’m not hostile. Or insecure.”
“You know how long I have been alive? One thousand two hundred years. You are a mere child to me, August, and as such, I can see right through you, as I can with most humans. You would do well to remember that. There is no hiding yourself from me.”
Things were getting heavy if they weren't before. She was telling me to drop the act, an act I was barely aware of at that time. A front I quickly learned to put on when I first started traveling. It was a defense mechanism, a way to cover my loneliness, a way to stop others from seeing my vulnerabilities. It wasn't who I was before I left Ireland, but it was who I became. Who I needed to be in those days so I could survive in the world.
"Alright," I said seriously. "Tell me exactly why I'm your man, and I'll do my best to help you out. Hell, I got nothing better to do in this city."
“You will do more than your best. You will find my daughter.”
I shifted in my seat. “Is that a threat?”
Her blood red lips parted as she smiled, and I caught a glimpse of her fangs, which she brought down just for me as vampires kept their fangs retracted usually. "I'm just trying to make you understand that you are involved in this now, whether you want to be or not. Ray said if I gave you a choice that you wouldn't do it, so I'm not giving you a choice."
“I take offense to that,” I said, shaking my head. “I would have helped you.”
"So if I say that you don't have to, and I get up and walk out of here, never to return. Unconditionally. You would still help me?"