by J. R. Rain
The man on the other end cleared his throat. Apparently, he’d been expecting a quip worthy of the master himself. No quips for you. “Yes, right... I am interested in securing your services.”
I waited, saying nothing. While I kept saying nothing, I looked at the framed photo on my desk, a photo I look at a hundred times a day.
“Are you there, Mr. Spinoza?”
“I am.”
“Did you say something about a boy?”
“I did not.”
“Right, never mind then.” He cleared his throat. “Although I’m not a rich man, I will pay you twice your going rate if you can meet me tonight.”
“Meet you where?”
There was a pause. “Do you enjoy trains, Mr. Spinoza?”
Something stirred in my gut. I’d learned to trust that something. I took in some air. “I have no opinions on trains, one way or the other.”
“Good. Now, do you have an opinion on vampires?”
***
“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice, Mr. Spinoza,” said the vampire on the train.
We were sitting in the lower-level cafe coach, at a table near the register. The cafe wasn’t as exciting as it sounded. There were a couple of display cases and a bored cashier working an ancient register.
I nodded and studied the man sitting across from me. Did one call a vampire a man? Or were they things? Entities? Monsters? I wasn’t sure, although I had come across my fair share of them.
The person before me certainly didn’t look like a monster. He looked sort of bookworm-y. Nerdy. Someone who could have passed for a friend on Big Bang Theory. Roundish glasses. Tweed jacket. Slacks and loafers. No socks. He was, quite frankly, the last person I would ever have guessed was a creature of the night.
I checked the time on my watch. 7:28 p.m. Well after sunset.
“You haven’t said a word yet, Mr. Spinoza.”
“It’s been rumored,” I said, “that I don’t talk much.”
The vampire sitting next to me threw back his head. His laughter was short but explosive. A deep, rich laugh. His laugh seemed better suited to a man twice his size. “We all have our idiosyncrasies, Mr. Spinoza. Nothing wrong with being the quiet type—or the shy type. Or both.”
“Who said anything about being shy?”
“You haven’t looked me in the eye yet, Mr. Spinoza. I don’t bite. That is, not like the others you’ve come across.”
“What others?”
“Vampires, Mr. Spinoza. You’ve made the press, and I know how to read between the lines. Do you deny that you’ve seen your fair share?”
The train lurched forward, and then proceeded a little more smoothly. We were off. Two women waited in line, one holding a coffee, the other a can of Diet Coke.
I said, “I’ve come across things that I don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand—or don’t want to understand?”
“Does it matter?”
“The former seems unlikely. The latter suggests you are in denial.” He smiled at me, and I saw it then: the deadness in his eyes.
“Tell me, Mr. Spinoza, do you deny vampires exist?”
“Let’s just say I’m uncomfortable with the term.”
“Why is that?”
“You tell me.”
He smiled, and, try as he might to be genial and gentlemanly, there was no warmth in his eyes. Only coldness and lifelessness. The eyes of a cadaver at the UCLA medical school.
“Perhaps you are afraid to admit the reality of vampires. Or perhaps you are afraid that using the word might summon one of us. How’s that working out for you?”
“Not very well.”
“You are looking at my eyes, Mr. Spinoza. Or, at least, thinking about them, wondering about them, perhaps even fearing them.”
I considered the weapon inside my light jacket. “Not fearing,” I said. “Never fearing.”
“Good. Of course, you aren’t afraid. Perhaps I am the one who should be afraid. After all, there is a reason why your gun is loaded with silver bullets.”
I said nothing. The weight of my weapon was comforting. I wondered how fast I could reach it. I also wondered why I had ever agreed to meet him here. Or how he knew about the bullets.
Lots of questions, I thought.
“I am not here to accuse you or confront you. Whether or not you have killed some of my kind, is your business. I surmise you had every reason to. Like I said on the phone, I only want to hire you.”
***
“I’m not like other vampires, Mr. Spinoza.”
“You throw that word around pretty liberally.”
He shrugged. “There’s no denying it.”
“There’s denying it a little.”
He held my gaze. “Not here, Mr. Spinoza. Not now. It is, as you will see, important for me to give you full disclosure.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Never have I been more sure.”
I told him to fire away and he did.
With both barrels.
***
“I was never very concerned about pursuing my vampirism. You see, although I was turned over a decade ago—turned very unwillingly and unexpectedly, I might add—I have mostly continued to live my life the same as I always have.”
The train picked up some speed. We were traveling south from Union Station in Los Angeles to Orange County. The train, called the Pacific Surfliner, did just that: ran up and down the Pacific Coast, in particular, all of Southern California. At present, we passed between warehouses and industrial parks as we made our way toward the coast. We were mostly alone in the cafe car, save for the cashier and a young kid who sipped idly on his straw and scrolled through his phone. I wondered if he could overhear our conversation.
“No one’s listening to us, Spinoza.”
“You can read my thoughts,” I said, and realized just how crazy my words sounded, even to my own ears.
“I did, yes. I somehow developed this gift—or curse. The stronger, the more focused the thought, the more likely I am to pick it up. The boy who’s sitting not far from us is lost in his own world. His thoughts are scattered and nearly incoherent.”
I said nothing; hell, I tried to think nothing, too. The cafe, located on the bottom level of a bi-level train, was the second-to-last coach on the train. For commuters, this was the end of the cars, but for the train crew, they could pass behind the counter and continue on to the crew car.
I sat facing the cafe, with my back to the majority of the car. Above me was a wide mirror that afforded me a view of the reserved business class behind me. In the mirror, I could see many coach passengers already asleep. Some were reading Kindles and Nooks and oversized cell phones. Most had white cords hanging from their ears. Maybe they were cyborgs, plugged into the train’s brain.
***
“I do not know much about my fellow vampires, Mr. Spinoza. I keep to myself and to my studies. I am, if you have not already figured it out, a professor of economics at USC.”
I had figured it out. After we’d hung up this morning, I had run his name through my various proprietary databases, as I did with each potential client. I knew his marital history (divorced). I knew his arrest record (none). I knew his job history (twenty-two years at USC). I knew where he lived (Trabuco Canyon), and I knew his driving record and credit history (both spotless). There wasn’t anything on paper to suggest that Professor Harry Artemis was a bloodsucking fiend.
He winced. “Ouch. If I am a fiend of anything, it’s educating our young people. I am passionate about my job, my position, and my students. There is, as you will discover, very little that is fiendish about me.”
Professor Artemis might just be a mind reader, if such a thing was possible, and I was beginning to think it was. Then again, I knew the professor was fifty-two years old, but he didn’t look a day older than thirty.
“A diet rich in blood and avoiding the sun does wonders, Mr. Spinoza. If you still doubt what I am, perhaps
a demonstration is in order.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and nearly reached for my gun—a gun loaded with silver bullets. Long story.
“No, Mr. Spinoza. Any fool can drink blood. I have another proposal. I assume your phone is equipped with a camera.”
I nodded.
“Very well. Why don’t you take my picture?”
I studied him long and hard, then reached inside my light jacket and removed my phone. As I swiped it on and punched in my password, I was not very surprised to see that my hands were shaking. Damn strange, all of it. I took in some air, willed myself to relax, and brought up the camera feature. Feeling foolish, I pointed the Android phone at the man sitting across from me. In the rectangular viewer, Professor Artemis curled his lips up in an ugly rictus of a grin, and I snapped the photo.
***
He disappeared—at least, from my screen.
One moment, his face was there, grinning that horrible grin, and the next, it was gone, replaced by a blurry, opaque smudge... a smudge that I could almost see through. All that remained on my screen was a headless cardigan sweater and a tweed jacket.
I swallowed. “Would you mind if I took another?”
“By all means.”
Harry the vampire didn’t smile this time. Instead, I caught him looking forlornly out the darkening window, his chin resting on his hand. This time, I didn’t take my eyes off the screen in front of me. One nanosecond, he was there, and the next, he was gone, replaced by the same blurry, see-through splotch. I took another, and another, and all were the same, picture after picture.
Sweet Jesus.
“Uncanny, isn’t it?”
I’d seen some strange shit in my time. Hell, I’d even taken down a vampire or two. In fact, I personally knew another bloodsucker by the name of Veronica Melbourne, a vampire who now spent her time hunting the worst of the worst—vampires and everything in-between. But I found these pictures strangely unnerving. I wasn’t facing down an attacking vampire. I wasn’t hunting a creature of the night. I wasn’t seeing something out of a nightmare that must be dealt with, in the moment, often with only a few seconds of thinking. Instead, I was calmly sitting across from a person who could not, would not, show up in my photographs. It was perplexing and exhilarating and frightening.
I said nothing. Then again, I’m used to saying nothing. Saying nothing is my catchphrase, so to speak. A friend of mine, Knighthorse, says enough for two people. Hell, maybe even for three or four. Most of what he says is about himself.
“I would like to meet this Knighthorse.”
“He would like that.”
“Why’s that?”
“Knighthorse thinks most people should meet him.”
The vampire laughed, tossing back his head enough for me to see the dark blue veins along his neck, just under the surface of his translucent skin.
“I sometimes wear makeup, you know, especially when I know I am going to be photographed. The makeup shows up on camera.”
How the hell do you respond to that? I didn’t know, so I didn’t. And as I kept not responding—and kept going through my photographs on my phone—I caught a phantom scent of burning flesh. The image of my son appeared in my thoughts, smoke still rising from his blackened and peeling skin. I took in some air and let the image go as fast as it came. These were my images, my cross to bear, my personal hell. As torturous as they were, they were all mine, and I didn’t want to share them with a fucking vampire.
“I’m not privy to all your secrets, Mr. Spinoza,” he said quietly, his voice seemingly reaching me from a distance. Then again, maybe he was speaking directly into my head. “Your intent to keep something secret is enough to shut someone like me out of your mind.”
“Or you can just stay the fuck out of my head.”
His stare did not waver. “I wish I knew how to turn it off. Sometimes, my connection is stronger with some people than with others. My connection with you is one of my strongest.”
“Lucky me,” I said. “Now, tell me why I’m here.”
“You’re here to save my life, Mr. Spinoza. Or not.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have a choice, of course.”
“Save your life from whom?”
“The man in my dreams.”
***
“The dream is always the same, Mr. Spinoza. I find myself here, in this very car. In this very cafe coach. You are sitting across from me, your back to the business class. In fact, seeing you here now is so surreal that I am afraid I am questioning reality.”
I felt the comforting—and very real—weight of my weapon in the holster inside my jacket. I could draw it quickly, if need be. Quick enough to stop a charging vampire? I didn’t know.
“Nor will you need to find out, Mr. Spinoza. I have never attacked another living soul.”
The train continued on into the night. The vampire before me rocked with it, although his eyes never left me, nor did they blink. Even one time.
I said, “Tell me more about this dream.”
He nodded once, and looked out the window to my right. I looked, too, and saw something alarming. He cast no reflection.
No reflection at all.
***
“They are, in fact, many dreams about the same event. Many dreams that end in different ways.”
“What do you mean?”
“I either live or die.”
“I see,” I said.
“No, you don’t, Mr. Spinoza. Let me explain further. In my dreams, I am here, in this very coach, sitting across from you as I am now. In my dreams, we are chatting, although I never know about what.”
“Maybe you are trying to convince me that you are a vampire.”
He smiled, or tried to. He should probably give up smiling altogether. There was no humor in his eyes, and his curling lips only made him look more ghoulish. “No, I get a sense that I am trying to sell you something, Mr. Spinoza. It is only when I awaken that I realize that I was trying to convince you to save me. That I was worth saving. That I was of value to this world, to the human race. That I was not like the others.”
“Other vampires?”
“Yes, Mr. Spinoza. The killers out there. Those who wreak havoc. Those who take from the human race, who exploit the human race, who feed upon the human race.” He paused, and I noted that his chest did not move. He did not pause for breath. He paused to collect his thoughts. “I understand you are wary of me. I would be wary of me, too, which is why, I think, I spent so much time in my dreams convincing you of my worth.”
“Why?”
He checked his watch. “Because in about twenty-two minutes, a man will step onto the train and either kill me, or not. The ‘not’ part is where you come in.”
The train hummed along, vibrating, jolting slightly, churning through the darkening evening, from Los Angeles County deep into Orange County.
“And who is this man?” I finally asked.
“I assume he’s a vampire hunter.”
“Have you met him before?”
“Just the once. I saw him in the back of my classroom. I recognized him instantly from my dreams. Somehow, I had attracted his attention. The how isn’t so important. After all, I suspect this is what he does. I suspect he’s good at what he does. I suspect he has ways of finding vampires—through contacts, perhaps. Perhaps supernatural contacts. Somehow, some way, he crossed paths with me, and knew what I was.”
“Do you know others like you?” I asked.
“No,” said Professor Artemis. “Nor do I advertise the fact. It is a closely guarded secret.”
“Unless someone snaps your picture.”
“Right,” he said. “Perhaps a picture of me—or a non-picture of me—circulated to the right person. And now, he’s on the hunt.”
“Tonight?”
“He’ll be armed with a crossbow, concealed inside his trench coat. Smaller than traditional crossbows. He’ll be very proficient at it, his aim true. I a
m shot in the heart, and am dead within seconds. At least, in half my dreams, I am.”
“And in the other half?”
“You save me.”
I drummed my fingers on the Formica table. It was surprisingly clear of graffiti and urban etchings. There was an ‘X’ carved not very far from my drumming fingers, but the carving was not very deep. The carver, apparently, wasn’t very inspired.
“How accurate are your dreams?” I finally asked.
“When I dream, Mr. Spinoza, the dreams are always prophetic. Usually, I don’t dream. Usually, I slip into complete blackness, only stirring when the sun sets. I see I am losing you again. Care to take another picture?”
I shook my head, checked my own watch. We were due to arrive in Fullerton in just under twenty minutes. I reached inside my jacket and adjusted the holster of the Walther. I kept my jacket open, the pistol grip facing out. I didn’t care if someone saw the weapon. At least, not for the next twenty minutes anyway.
“I know this is a lot to accept—and in so short a time. But you do have experience with my kind. Maybe that’s why you keep appearing in my dreams. Maybe you, better than most, are equipped to deal with the supernatural. So, perhaps that’s why you are here. A lot of this isn’t new to you.”
“I’m here because you asked me to meet you here.”
“True enough, Mr. Spinoza. But make no mistake, there is a reason why you appear in my dreams over and over. And there is a reason why there are two versions of my dream.”
“Free will,” I said.
“Very good, Mr. Spinoza,” said the professor, sounding very much as if he were speaking to a student. “In particular, your free will. You get to choose whether I live or die.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but a young lady wearing a USC sweater, jeans and a backpack stepped into the cafe car. She perused the many shelves of potato chips and candy bars and nuts. As she reached for a can of Pringles, she paused, cocked her head, then abruptly turned and left.
I watched her go in the mirror above me, and then looked at the vampire. “What happened with her?”
