Scared Shiftless: An Ex-Shifter turned Vampire Hunter Urban Fantasy (The Legend of Nyx Book 1)

by Theophilus Monroe

  “I’ve been watching you… observing you for some time,” Wolfgang said.

  I scrunched my brow. “How didn’t I notice you? How didn’t I smell you?”

  “Old Spice,” Wolfgang said with a shrug.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, really…”

  “When we feed, it isn’t the blood of humans that sustains us. Technically speaking, the nutritional content of blood is limited. The life, the soul, is in the blood… that’s what we feed upon.”

  I nodded. “I’m aware.”

  “And human souls are magical in a way. Not that most humans ever tap into their abilities at all. Few could, even if they knew how. But when we acquire bits and pieces of souls, from time to time we gain a bit of their magic. Not always—not every feed has the result. But when you’ve been around as long as I have, you’re bound to have gotten lucky a few times.”

  “So you’re telling me you have… abilities?”

  “I’ve acquired my share,” Wolfgang said.

  I scratched my head. “What sort of abilities?”

  Wolfgang smiled again. “Suffice it to say I have the skill to evade you.”

  I grunted. It made sense that he’d play his cards close to his chest. A vampire doesn’t survive as long as this one by showing his full hand. “And Alice?”

  “She has more than her share of… gifts as well.”

  “Such as?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Well, she can shapeshift…”

  “Of course she can. She stole that from me.”

  “Of course,” Wolfgang said. “That is one of her more useful skills. But your former abilities are limited, are they not?”

  “I can’t become whatever I want… I mean, I couldn’t. I only became whatever it was the meal I’d targeted desired the most, whatever he or she found most attractive and alluring.”

  Wolfgang nodded. “And if Alice assumes a human-like form, I presume it is your power she is relying upon.”

  I cocked my head. “But she can assume other forms, too?”

  “It’s a fairly common ability amongst older vampires, though typically one more frequently acquired in the old world. It’s an ability that usually run in the blood of Eastern Europeans.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean much to me.”

  “She can become something like a bat.”

  “Something like?”

  The vampire shook his head. “You’d have to see it for yourself. And it’s not her only ability, but it is one she’s had for some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gained a few more… especially since she’s been freed from the Order’s restrictions.”

  I nodded and opened the pamphlet Wolfgang had given me before. “This is just bullshit propaganda from that so-called church. I don’t see anything here about the Order and when it meets.”

  Wolfgang stepped next to me and traced his hand down the paper. It was one thing when he was in front of me, when we were face to face. Opponents, or at least those whose relationship is purely a matter of taking care of business, usually address each other head-on. Standing next to someone, though… that’s the posture of an ally.

  It felt like he was getting into my personal space, which sent a shiver down my spine. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  He pointed at one of the meetings listed under the heading, Church Activities.

  I huffed. “The Order of the Morning Dawn meets at the same time as the church’s quilting guild?”

  “A patchwork sort of way to remain undercover.” Wolfgang smirked.

  “I see what you did there,” I huffed, a bit surprised that the vampire had actually cracked a joke. “But don’t they run the risk that actual quilters might show up to their meeting?”

  Wolfgang shrugged. “It’s not exactly a meeting. All I know is that the handler—the one who hands out assignments for the Order—she’ll be there.”

  “Quilting?” I chuckled a little at the idea.

  Wolfgang nodded. “You’d do well to show up with something that proves you have abilities… that you could be useful.”

  “Like an afghan?”

  “Not those abilities,” Wolfgang said. “Hunting abilities.”

  “You’re suggesting I bring a staked vampire with me to the ladies’ quilting guild at the haters church?”

  “Exactly.”

  I shook my head. “Humans are weird sometimes.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You seriously trust that vamp?” Brucie lit a cigar… while sitting on my shoulder.

  “Of course I don’t,” I said. “Must you do that on my shoulder? I don’t want to smell it!”

  “These Nicaraguans… so smooth…” Brucie took a deep draw on his cigar before blowing his smoke into my hair.

  “I just conditioned this morning.”

  “You’re avoiding the question. About the vampire.”

  “No I’m not,” I said. “I told you I don’t trust him.”

  “Then why are you following his lead?”

  “Because he and I have a common goal. We both want Alice eliminated. I don’t trust him generally. In any other circumstance, not at all. But until Alice is dead, I think we can at least trust that he’ll lead us in the right direction.”

  “That’s so sweet!” Brucie said.

  I glanced at him; he was smiling wide even as cigar smoke flowed freely between his lips. “What is?”

  “You said we.” Brucie looked to the sky and sighed. “He loves me, he really loves me!” Brucie flicked his cigar to the ground. I wasn’t sure how he always seemed to have an endless supply of those things. Then he snapped his fingers and turned to vapor.

  I snorted. “Where’d you go?”

  Brucie reappeared on my opposite shoulder. “Still here! Sort of. I’m never far.”

  “Didn’t realize you could do that,” I said. “I thought for a second you’d given up smoking for vaping.”

  “Funny,” Brucie said. “But vaping is weird. I mean, we’re made of water. Vaping would be like, if we were human and inhaled burning flesh.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “Exactly!” Brucie said. “This form is exhausting. But I’m always around, buddy. You just have to say my name three times and I’ll appear.”

  I cocked my head. I’d seen that late-nineteen-eighties Tim Burton movie, Beetlejuice. After five years, of course, I was still playing catch-up on human culture, but I’d done my best to absorb as much as possible. Movies, television, books—everything was available with a good internet connection. And while I doubted Brucie had seen it, he’d probably siphoned that dated cultural reference directly from my mind.

  Brucie snapped his fingers again and re-vaporized.

  It was going to take a little getting used to having a cigar-smoking sprite—who used to be a part of me—always nearby.

  Apparently he’d always been there. At least, he had been in my former life.

  Having him around, as weird as it was when he read my mind, wasn’t a bad thing. Sometimes, even when I was with Donnie or others in the community, this existence could be awfully lonely. There just wasn’t anyone else like me. Not exactly.

  Being transgender was one thing. But I still hadn’t met anyone else who was transspecies.

  I wasn’t sure if Brucie qualified as “transspecies.” I think he’d always been a sprite. He hadn’t become something entirely different, but he might as well have. This mode of being, living as an individual separate from me or any other elemental for five years, must’ve been as taxing on him as it had been on me.

  At least I had the advantage of being able to have a community where I was accepted. I could blend in, somewhat.

  I suspected, behind all his bravado, cigar smoking, and womanizing, Brucie was probably just as isolated as I was. Deep down, he was alone, too.

  Until now.

  Not like I’d ask him about it. I was pretty sure he’d laugh it off. Tell me to grow a pair. Whatever. But there was no reason he had to start following me around
just because we happened to encounter each other again. That was his choice. And generally, if people are happy with their lives, they aren’t as eager to embrace change, to leave whatever they’ve gathered in their lives behind…

  I didn’t know much about what Brucie had been doing during the course of the last five years. To hear him talk, it was all sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. I knew better than that, even without being able to read his mind as he could mine.

  When I got back to the apartment, Donnie was fast asleep. It wasn’t that she went to bed early; I’d just failed to realize how much time had passed since I left to meet up with Wolfgang. It was two o’clock in the morning…

  Of course Donnie was in bed. Unlike me, she worked normal human hours. And she was used to me coming in at all hours of the night. Par for the course when you’re roomies with a vampire hunter.

  I loved showers. It was almost like going home.

  And after a night like this, knowing what I would have to do when I went to that church… how much I was going to have to pretend…

  Well, I might not have been dirty, but the whole idea of it made me feel that way.

  A warm shower was a small consolation. But it was just what I needed.

  And it was going to be a short night. Not that I needed sleep, really. Not as often as regular humans. But I enjoyed whatever shut-eye I could get, even if it would only be a couple hours. Because I had an hour drive ahead of me.

  And the Order of the Morning Dawn met—under the guise of a ladies’ quilting guild—at the morning dawn.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone for a ride on my bike so early in the morning. I usually wasn’t up and around yet; I often slept until midday. Not because I was tired or needed it—more because there just wasn’t a lot to do that interested me most mornings.

  And I could only tolerate so much time in front of a television.

  I think a lot of humans get hooked on the tube during childhood. I didn’t have a childhood. Not a human one, at least… and even as an elemental, there really isn’t a comparable experience.

  When I was in the asylum, Doctor Cain—the shrink who ran the place—ran into all sorts of challenges working with me. I mean, so much of what he did with most clients involved an analysis of one’s youth, diving into one’s relationship with her parents. In lieu of that, he tried to use my entire previous experience as a baseline.

  I still remember him sitting there, his legs crossed, looking at me intently. “How did it make you feel when you ate someone?”

  “Satisfied,” I told him. I mean, how else was I supposed to answer that? At the time, humans were nothing more than food to me.

  Funny how the wind in my face, riding my bike early in the morning, was even more invigorating than later in the day. The dew of the morning before sunrise—it was refreshing. Not like later in most summer days when the sun had a chance to bake the smog into the air.

  Satisfying…

  Not in the same way a meal, perhaps, used to be in my previous life. But something about the air striking my face, my hair blowing from beneath my helmet, was incredibly calming.

  I had a change of shoes in a duffel bag strapped to the back of my bike. I figured my leather pants and my white blouse—a button-up shirt with a little lace around the wrists—were probably the most gender-neutral pieces I owned. At least I wasn’t wearing a dress.

  These pants were better when I was on the bike, anyway—for obvious reasons.

  If the Order folks questioned my style, I’d simply say I had Elizabethan tastes. I didn’t wear it often, but it was a part of my get-up for the local renaissance festival.

  Aside from Leotards and Lace, it was the only semi-consistent gig I’d managed to score. Sure, they only had the festival once a year. But with my musical talents, I’d worked the fair as a bard… or bardess, as the case might be.

  When I wasn’t doing that, I offered crossbow demonstrations—a weapon I also had in my oversized duffel and mounted to my bike. Aside from the common stake—or, in a pinch, a stiletto—the crossbow was the best weapon I’d found for hunting vamps.

  I mean, a crossbow bolt is basically a flying stake. Bullets don’t work; they go right through the vampire’s heart, allowing the fiend to immediately heal. A bow and arrow would do the same thing.

  But a crossbow was easier to aim, at least for me. The bolts were, on average, a little smaller than arrows. I could carry more of them. And for the most part, it was more consistent. So many factors can impact the force of an arrow when it leaves a bow. But with my crossbow, the bolts flew with predictable force. Too little power, as could happen with a bow, and even if the arrow broke the sternum or got through the rib cage, it might end up diverted away from the heart.

  After all, that’s what the rib cage is for—to protect the heart. Even staking a vampire by hand, unlike how it’s often depicted in the movies or on television, often fails if a hunter doesn’t know what he or she is doing. Many newbie hunters have failed—and gotten bitten and drained—because they made the mistake of trying to go straight through the sternum.

  There was an art to the hunt… and I needed to present myself as the Pablo Picasso of vampire slaying.

  A painter wouldn’t show up to create a masterpiece without his brushes, paints, and a proper canvas. I couldn’t show up to meet the Order without some basic vamp-hunting weapons.

  If they didn’t believe I was a professional, they’d probably turn me away. Hunting vampires is a dangerous business. Hell, if I had a vehicle with a trunk, I’d probably bring a vampire corpse with me to make my case. If it came to that…

  When I pulled up to the church, I was more drawn to what looked like a multicolored house, striped in all the colors of the rainbow, just across the street.

  I smiled to myself. Epic trolling. Love it.

  I dismounted my bike and straightened out my blouse. Err, shirt. I had to remember to refer to it as a shirt. I licked my fingers and pulled my hair back behind my ears before grabbing my duffel bag.

  I walked through the door. The place was quiet and dark. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet; it would soon. That’s when the Order was supposed to meet.

  Then I heard running water. It’s a sound I can pick up from a mile away.

  I followed the sound down a long hallway.

  An older lady was standing behind the counter of a small church kitchen, filling up a carafe of water and pouring it into a coffee maker.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “My name’s Nicky…”

  “Nicky?”

  I grunted. “Or just Nick.”

  The woman nodded. “Sometimes childhood nicknames stick.”

  “They do.” I feigned a smile. At least she’d thought “Nicky” was meant to be a child’s name rather than a woman’s name—as it was. I knew my undercover job was a bit shoddy, and didn’t need any red flags suggesting I might be one of those whom their divinity apparently despises.

  “Can I help you with something?” the lady asked.

  I nodded, unfolded the flyer Wolfgang had given me, and handed it to her. “I was referred to your quilting guild.”

  “You were referred, you say?”

  I unzipped my duffel bag and pulled out a stake, twirling it in my hand. “I think you know what for.”

  The woman nodded as the coffee machine started to grumble behind her. “Just a little farther down the hall, third door on the right. I’ll be bringing in the coffee shortly. Cream or sugar?”

  I shook my head. “No ma’am. I’m something of a purist, I suppose.”

  The woman nodded. “Many of your sort are, dear.”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what she meant. Hunters? I guess that made sense. If you thought that vampires were a “stain” on humanity, that their existence was an abomination, I suppose that was a form of purism.

  I walked through the door. Three white-haired older ladies grinned widely at me. I nodded at them politely.

  I gue
ss I expected the room to be arranged like a classroom. Rectangular tables and chairs, that sort of thing. It looked more like someone’s living room.

  I always make a point to survey my surroundings—a habit I developed for a couple of reasons. Obviously, when hunting vampires it’s important to know where all your exits are. What items might be nearby that could be used in a pinch. Chair legs that could become stakes. Things like that. Sometimes when you’re coming after a vamp with what’s obviously a stake, they’re harder to handle. They know what you’re doing. But when I come after them with a shoe in my hand, or quickly bust a leg off a chair, I gain the element of surprise.

  I also learned to gain an awareness of my surroundings as a trans woman. There’s a bit of a nasty word in the community: passable. The word is meant to describe how well a trans person resembles their true gender identity as opposed to the one that’s assumed based on the genitalia. Well, I’m not exactly what some people would call “passable.” Fabulous, yes. Beautiful, of course. But I couldn’t count on my fingers or toes how many times I overheard people asking one another, “Is that a man?”

  When people recognize you as trans, you have to exercise some of the same precautions I’d use as a vampire hunter. I always had to be aware of the exits. On the one hand, I couldn’t sit in corners because if someone confronted me, I’d be left with no choice but to fight my way out. And I couldn’t sit in an open room comfortably without a lurking fear that someone would sucker punch me from behind.

  It’s sad, but it’s just the way it is for many of us. People like me. And while I felt reasonably confident that none of the women were a direct threat, they did belong to an organization rooted in fundamentalist convictions. They hated vampires and witches because they were convinced that their Bibles—albeit with questionable interpretations—told them so. And based on the reputation of the folks who attended this church, they’d likely hate me for the same reasons if they knew my truth.

  The room didn’t have any clear exits other than the door through which I’d come. There were a few small windows that could work in a pinch, but I doubted it would come to that. The room had several mismatched couches, their backs against the walls. A giant, oval-shaped rug in the middle of the room featured oranges, greens, and golds. Similar colors decorated the couches—probably donations to the church, I presumed, from people who realized they were at least four decades out of style. There were also a couple old-style rocking chairs, the sort that actually rock on their curved bottoms, not the kind that glide on an internal mechanism.