A Guide to Vampire Hunting: ...and other failures (Alchemy Inc. Book 1)

by Janus Alexander

  Her father coughed sightly, and once more rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was his little ceremony before he said something she didn’t want to hear.

  “Ahem.” He fiddled with his mint tea. From the looks of it, this was going to be really bad. “You know I loved Mona…” He started and paused. “You know I love you both equally. But…You were my favorite. I couldn’t understand her as I do you. She was…very much like your mother.” He paused again. “That said. I loved Mona, and I mourn her everyday.” Amelia could hear it coming and took a deep breath to argue with whatever was about to be said. He stopped her by holding his palm out. “No honey, wait till I finish talking. What Mother and Mona do - did - is a violent life. And you were always my pride, setting Dagda culture aside to create beautiful things… I sometimes think you aren’t a poor witch at all, just a creation witch that was stifled. You create, you build, you nurture. So you must understand when I say, I do not want to watch those characteristics go by the way side so you can destroy.”

  “But vampires need to be destroyed. Their evil cannot be allowed to go around infecting the world. It is our duty to take care of them.”

  Her father sighed deeply. “Is it? Was it the settler’s right to burn our ancestors?”

  “But we’re the good guys.”

  “Have you ever considered that maybe to them, they are too?”

  “Dad, I love you but that’s crazy.” Hissed Amelia, “Have you said this to mom?”

  “Are all witches good?”

  “No…”

  “Then why would all vampires be bad?”

  “That’s obvious, they’re demons from hell, stealing souls to reanimate their host’s body. They’re not even undead, they’re just walking corpses animated by the devil. They were never even human to begin with.”

  “Who told you that? Your mother?”

  “No, Mona did.”

  “And who was Mona parroting?”

  “No. Enough socratic questions Dad, it’s just the truth. I know you want everyone to be shades of grey - but some things are just black and white.” Amelia sighed wearily setting down her cup almost untouched.

  Her father seemed to grow even more tired and exhaled deeply. “Then just think on this, how will you be seen when you die? To me, you will be a grave loss…to your mother? Foolish. Where is the honor in dying for the dead?”

  Amelia stood up quickly. “You know, mom’s right. You are crazy and dangerous in your ignorance. I love you but this is ridiculous.” Amelia stomped out of the arboretum and through the house.

  As she passed the hall into the foyer, Amelia heard her cousin call out from the kitchen. “Going to go see your boyfriend?”

  Amelia raised her finger in a one handed salute and walked out.

  *

  “Its time for you to go.”

  “You know you can’t speak a word a word of this to Amelia.” Kristoff threatened.

  “I’m not stupid enough to get caught in your politics. But…if you hurt her…” Jack threatened.

  “ No, no. I have no intention of her getting hurt.”

  “Yeh well, good intentions are like assholes, everyone has them.”

  “I think that’s opinions.” Kristoff pointed out. Jack narrowed his eyes dangerously. “I swear on my honor no harm will come to the girl.” Jack nodded sharply them slammed the door in Kristoff’s face. For a moment Kristoff just stared at the shut door, then he sighed deeply. Turning, he shoved his hands in his pockets and jogged down the worn stone stairs from Amelia’s apartment. Kristoff really wasn’t sure he was as comfortable he was doing the right thing anymore. Shoving open the apartment lobby doors he braced for the cold, was there a way he could make this trespass up to her?

  Chapter 6

  The perch across from Nikolais’s was extra cold that night and Amelia shivered in her coat. The fingers grasping her cigarette shook, and she wondered if her father had been right. After she had probably hurt him so badly.

  She had sat here, in this spot for four years waiting for a chance to kill Nikolais. She’d never even seen him, she just knew he lived here. Four years of wasting her nights on this when she could have finished school, could have made her name as an artist…could have been one of the couple on that balcony, happy.

  Amelia shook herself. She couldn’t afford such thoughts, they just made her weak. Like her father. She’d never realized that he was so deluded. Good vampires? She supposed as a creation witch, he just wanted an end to the violence that claimed his oldest daughter. But to cease the hunt would be suicide, vampires would overrun the earth and kill all the witches, and enslave the humans. Just as in the dark ages. Vampires had proven themselves soulless demons, and the folklore of her clan confirmed it. Her father couldn’t be right.

  Amelia made a hole-in-one in the window box in front of her, and wondered if a happy couple lived there too. Oblivious to sharing their community with a killer.

  That would be why she would continue. Not just for Mona, but for the happy couples everywhere. So they could have their peaceful dreams.

  Monday dawned in fiery reds and yellows, waking up Amelia who was painfully stiff on her perch. She’d fallen asleep on watch again. Shaking herself awake, Amelia glanced at her watch and found her shift starting in less than an hour. Amelia scrambled down from her little spot carefully - but with all the haste she could manage. Below, the street was waking up, and moving about. If she wasn’t careful, someone would notice her and her aerie would be useless. Amelia raced to the coffee shop, running sidewalks and pushing past crowds. She was just on time when she skidded into work.

  Only to find Kristoff standing inside the closed store charming her manager.

  He looked her up and down, as if he could tell she’d slept in her clothes outside, and raised one of the famous eyebrows. His smile seemed to disguise disapproval of her behavior.

  “Amelia, just who I wanted to see.”

  “I’m working right now Kris, you know the agreement.”

  Kristoff cringed “Kristoff, Amelia. I am not here to take you away,” he winked at Kathy and she blushed furiously. “I came to get coffee from your lovely Kathy and tell you to meet me at the warehouse after you get off. You remember where it is - yes?”

  Amelia shot him a nasty look and glanced at his close proximity to her middle-aged boss. “I remember. Now, if that’s all, I should punch in. We have to open the store.”

  “Oh, dear, I’m having a lovely conversation with this young man, can you cover opening today?” Kathy looked doe eyed and Kristoff. He smirked. Damn him.

  Amelia turned for the back of the shop and pulled on her apron, all the while murmuring. “I’m having a LO-V-ELY conversation with THIS young man…” She quickly rearranged her face and went back out front to start the regular and decaf drip coffee.

  Thankfully, by the time she came out, Kristoff was gone, and Kathy was twittering like a high schooler. “Oh, dear, he is, SUCH a charmer. You’re very lucky he’s taken such an interest in you.” She made a show of fanning her face.

  “Yup. Lucky.”

  “What? Don’t you like him? He definitely likes you.”

  Amelia shrugged. “He’s nice enough.”

  “WHY, AMELIA! If I were your age, I’d be falling at his feet.”

  “He’s just not my type.Too pretty, too rich…”

  “Too rich?” asked Kathy aghast, then she laughed, “You’re too picky Amelia. When did you cut loose last? Last week? Last month? Last year?”

  Four years. It had to have been the week before Mona died. “Eh.” Amelia said. “I’m just a homebody.” Amelia powered up the machines and tested the steam wand to see if the night shift had cleaned them the night before.

  “Amelia! How old are you, 30?”

  Amelia gritted her teeth, “No, I’m 26.”

  Kathy waved her hand dismissively. “Even worse! Darling you’re not getting any younger, go out and find someone. Look at me. I’m the grasshopper that fiddled all summer, and now,
in the winter of my life, I’m alone.”

  “Kathy, you’re only 40.”

  Kathy preened for a moment. “Do you think I have a chance with him if you don't want him?”

  Amelia wanted to sputter, but just grit her teeth harder. “I don’t know Kathy…”

  Kathy’s face soured.

  Amelia hedged. “He just looks like… a playboy…to me…”

  Kathy sighed deeply, mollified. “I suppose you’re right. But a little innocent flirting can never hurt…”

  Amelia didn’t respond, but Kathy didn’t really want her to after all.

  Amelia left Kathy’s Koffee right on time and sighed as soon as she got out relieved. Kathy had taken her new lease on dating seriously and put on a glaring red lipstick, flirting outrageously with all the male customers.

  Navigating through the alleys Amelia wended her way to the art studios, taking her time to herself before she was going to be overwhelmed by Kristoff’s usually expansive presence.

  She was late by the time she finally got to the factory doors, but couldn’t bring herself to care if Kristoff had been waiting. He could be at her convenience too.

  Making her way through the rooms to the back, Amelia glanced around admiring the other artists’ work as she went. As she came to Kristoff’s work space she noticed the door to the adjoining studio open and glanced in. Giant oil canvases littered the walls, images of the female form obscured by the sloping grace of lilies, bodies spread out in feasts of crimson and gold glowing from canvases. The picture of one naked model particularly caught her eye and she wandered over. It was a nude from behind, the woman just seated on a plain backless wooden stool. Amelia cocked her head, somehow Amelia thought she knew her. But how was she really to tell from the back? The woman’s body was sensuously muscled, but not overly so. Her hands sat behind her gripping the rim of the birch stool as if her perch were very precarious, and her face was tilted away in such a manner to give the idea that she was about to turn around and look you in the eye. Down her slim porcelain back a long braid of golden hair slid down like exposed vertebrae. It was striking, lovely. Amelia stared transfixed, until she heard Kristoff call her from outside. Swiftly, guiltily, she turned, preparing to run out so she wouldn’t be found breaking and entering someone else’s studio. Considering the canvases, the artist was probably very private.

  But before she could even fully turn to the door, Kristoff was sticking his head through it.

  “Lovely isn’t she?”

  “I just, I saw the door open and thought…”

  “Don’t trouble yourself this is my brother’s studio. He only works at night…after work, you know, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

  “He’s very good.” Amelia said glancing back over, something about the woman still tickled her mind.

  “Now don’t go hurting my feelings, I think I’m the better of the two of us.”

  Amelia looked back at him to see if he was serious. Of course he wasn’t. Amelia shook her head. “You’re such a troll.”

  He seemed to be complemented by this and led her out of the room. “Come along, I’m sure we will meet him eventually, and I’m sure he’ll be so utterly charming you’ll just drop your clothes. Everybody does.”

  “What did you just say?!”

  Kristoff gave a cheshire smile. “You know, model for him. What on earth did you think I meant?”

  Amelia cleared her throat and gave him a death glare. He opened his mouth, and she held her finger up swiftly. “No, you don’t get another shot. You’re going to go out and play Peter Parker and I’m just going to humor you and follow you around.”

  Snapping his jaws shut decisively he smirked and walked her back into his studio. “Spiderman huh? I would have figured you for a Batman kinda girl.”

  Amelia gave a small smile and a shrug. “So, what about you?”

  “Deadpool, definitely.”

  Now Amelia looked at him like he was crazy. “Deadpool? Really? That’s so gory. No offense, you’re crazy but not crazy.”

  “And how would you know that?” Kristoff asked sharply.

  Amelia scoffed. “I can just tell. Geez, stop being a creeper and lets get going.”

  Kristoff grinned, but for a moment something sharp, dangerous and bright peered out of his pupils before vanishing into his usual mischievous carelessness. It stopped Amelia for a moment. But as always she just wrote it off as Kristoff being … Kristoff.

  As usual, Kristoff's darkness passed quickly and he was soon standing over his desk with his arms planted on the top and braced on it apart. “I thought you might want to see what we achieved last night.”

  Opening a large folder, Kristoff spread beautiful black and whites in front of him with obvious pride. And hate it as she might, his pride was warranted. It was a chiaroscuro wonderland, stark whites and inky darkness. The buildings seemed fantastical and mysterious in his shots, they gave the feeling of a forgotten city built by a lost culture.

  But they were also, very lonely. A disconnected point of view as if the artist could only look in.

  All except the couple. He had obviously colorized them. The bodies seemed flush with the glow of the candles, the woman’s lips a soft kiss of red on her lover’s. The whole of the muted watercolor effect gave the feeling that the color was only the inner glow of the love of the central figures. It was moving, and not quite as lonely as the others. But it was still…longing. Amelia glanced surreptitiously at Kristoff, but as soon as he caught her glance he shuffled that print under the others. “You put a lot of work into that one.”

  Kristoff shrugged negligently, “L’amour c’est belle.”

  Amelia looked at him for a moment longer and shook her head. “O-k. So where are we off to now Baudelaire, poet of the lost and empty?”

  At the word Baudelaire he grinned even wider, “Why Poe, I didn’t know you cared.”

  Amelia regarded him in disbelieving silence. “Not into literary jokes I see. Well, we’re off to the Socrates Sculpture Park to see if anything new popped up.” He chirped, and as usual, he just started swiftly out of the room without her.

  As Amelia struggled to catch up, she panted out. “Look you don’t need to pander to me, I’ve been there…Hey! What’s with the cane?”

  “Well the sculpture garden isn’t precisely what we’re after. I had a fancy to photograph the abandoned Adirondack furniture warehouse that’s beside it.”

  Amelia mentally slapped her forehead. More fang banger territory. Brilliant. Did he just have a radar for this shit?

  “I don’t know Kristoff that area’s…. Not a great neighborhood.”

  “Are you really chickening out again? It’s perfectly safe, I go all the time.”

  Amelia rolled her eyes. Of course he did. They rushed onto the metro and once on he leaned gallantly on his cane and stood strikingly amongst the crowd. More than one woman - and several men - looked him over in interest. Amelia averted her face and tried not to appear associated with him. He completely ruined her incognito thing. He just drew attention wherever he went.

  “Can you be a little less…I don’t know…Foppish?” Hissed Amelia.

  Kristoff glanced down and smiled, “I’m not a fop…I’m a dandy.” Amelia rolled her eyes and held onto the metro strap above her.

  “Astoria exits!” The conductor cried over the intercom.

  Amelia looked up at the speaker above. Kristoff kicked out his cane and twirled it like a man in a musical, then poked Amelia with it. “We’re off!” He strode out of the car and Amelia struggled to keep up with his long legged stride. He popped above ground, continuing on all the while whistling. And not for the first time Amelia wondered if he was nuts - or if she was nuts. She was the one following him…

  Finally they reached the gates to the park and the last of the sunlight burned over the river in ripples of red and fierce orange. Somehow it gave Amelia a sense of foreboding.

  In the sculpture garden all the installations rose like the skeletons of
ancient animals out of the chill dark. They were no less impressive by twilight than in the glaze of day. Amelia caught up with Kristoff at the edge of the beach watching the last of the light fade. He turned swiftly. “So! Let’s wander!”

  Striding off less quickly than before, Kristoff paced to the sculpture of the home sinking into the ground swirling into a wooden tornado. The breaks in the wooden panels seemed more craven and menacing by dark. It was all the cracked planes of the world spiraling into confusion. The two of them paused and looked it over.

  Soon, Kristoff handed her his cane and pulled his camera from the voluminous folds of his coat and began shooting. After he seemed satisfied with that piece, he wandered about looking for the next vantage, leaving Amelia with the cane. Which gave her time to examine it. The piece was old, that Amelia could tell just from the touch of it. The wood’s thick black lacquer was smoothly indented in dips where the owner must have held it longest. In this case it was the middle.

  Which was weird, because while the silver filagree top showed wear as well, it seemed the grasp at the middle was more pronounced. Who carried a cane by the middle? “Amy!” Yelled Kristoff.

  “It’s Amelia,” she grouched back.

  “I told you it was annoying when people did that.” He smirked.

  Amelia grunted. “Point proven. Now do you need me or were you just trolling?”

  “I need you.” He purred playfully.

  Amelia narrowed her eyes at the slight sexual undertone, but came up to his side. “I’m not paid for you to hit on me. Let’s go back to confusing frenemies. What is it?” She asked peevishly.

  “You are the most foul tempered servant I’ve had in all my days, which is saying something.”

  “Servant?”

  “I am technically paying you.”