by Drew Hayes
“Glad to know I made a fool of myself in front of someone so important,” I joked. I tried to make it sound light hearted, but my nerves shone through.
“No need to worry. Gideon is not offended by people cowering in fear of him,” Richard assured me. “In fact, he prefers it. Reminds him that he’s still got the mojo, even in his current shape.”
“No question he does, though for the life of me, I don’t get why someone with all that clout wants to be a kid, or is crashing with one of his subjects,” I said. The shadow of some deep pain rippled over Richard’s face again, and I decided it was time to move the subject. “I just hope I never give a repeat performance. I’m ready to go home, drink some liquid refreshment, and pass out until the next sunset.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Bubba said, flashing me a warm grin. He’d been exceptionally cheerful since we met back up, no doubt relieved to know Amy had been found safely. “Look at it this way—at least you have an interesting story to tell Krystal when she gets back.”
I chuckled despite myself. “That is true. I bet she thinks all I did while she was gone was sit around and play . . . Hey!” I slapped my hand on the table, leaving an accidental dent in its cheap-plastic surface. “I almost forgot.”
“What is it?” Richard asked. The whole table leaned in tensely. After a night of constant surprises, they had immediately shifted back into Ready For Anything Mode.
“We still have a game of Scrabble to finish.”
“Oooh, can I come? I love that game,” Amy said. I was admittedly not overly fond of the woman who had given me a night full of stress and horror, but she had apologized, and it wasn’t like she meant to do any harm. Besides, I had spent most of life with very few people to pal around with. It wasn’t in me to turn away anyone’s advances of friendship.
“Sure,” I told her. “The more, the merrier.”
“Awesome.” She hopped up from the chair and gulped down the last of her drink. “Let me just get some more food to go.”
A Monster in the Pews
1.
It would be lovely to say that the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. However, for all the amenities my apartment provided, a fireplace was sadly not one of them. Instead, we’d used a large wooden stand that I think had started its life as a paint easel before Bubba undertook remodeling it. I have to say, it was a far better piece of craftsmanship than anything I could have managed, though Bubba tended to skimp on the more aesthetic details like paint. And symmetry.
“Hey, Betty Crocker, your cookies are nearly done,” Krystal called from the kitchen. No, I don’t know why she insisted on telling me this rather than donning an oven mitt and extracting them herself. By this point it hardly surprised me anymore. I pinned the final stocking, our new friend Amy’s, to the makeshift mantle, and headed into the kitchen.
“How’s the decorating coming?” Krystal asked as I walked in. She sat at the counter polishing off yet another glass of homemade eggnog. At this rate I’d have to put together another batch before the guests even arrived. I had the supplies for it. I was nothing if not a contingency planner, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Slowly,” I told her, taking a look at the crisping chocolate cookies for myself. I’ll give her this—she’d been right about their level of doneness. “I could use some help.”
“Guess you shouldn’t have given Albert the day off, then.”
“He put in the form three weeks ago. Besides, he and Neil were going Christmas shopping.”
“On December 23rd? I see that being real productive.”
“I suppose all your gift buying is done?”
Krystal turned away, pretending to be sheepish. We’d been dating long enough for me to know better. That girl rarely had a sense of shame about anything.
“I might have a few last-minute items to buy. I didn’t expect someone to befriend a damn therian lord and The King of the West, both of whom protocol demands I make seasonal gifts to.”
I was tempted to ask more, but I knew Krystal would just button-up on details. The agency she worked for, just known as The Agency among people of my type, was so secret that most of Washington didn’t know it existed. They made sure all the parahumans in America held to the treaties and adhered to the laws that pertained to them. It was a job that kept her pretty darn busy, so I was glad they’d given her Christmas off. I pulled open the oven and delicately picked up the trays, setting them on the stovetop to cool momentarily before transferring the cookies to wire racks. The heat from the metal trays registered across my naked hands. However, since it wasn’t actual fire, there was no damage or pain.
“These should be perfect by the time the guests arrive,” I said, checking the clock and realizing with a start that I only had thirty minutes left. That would have been plenty of time normally; my friends could be a bit disregardful of social convention, though. There was no telling when they’d start pounding on my reinforced steel door.
“You might need more nog,” Krystal informed me, filling up her now empty glass once more from the punchbowl.
I scowled at her. “There’s a tub of ice cream and a dozen eggs in there. You should have made yourself sick by now. I’ll never understand how you eat so much and stay so lean.” Krystal and I had both been overweight in high school. Add in social anxiety, and you can see how we traveled in similar social circles. My weight loss had come after the change. A liquid diet is quite slimming. As to hers, well, I’d never quite unraveled that mystery. It definitely wasn’t her diet; that much was quite evident.
“Ancient Chinese secret.” She gave me a playful wink that was half-obscured by her blonde hair.
“Says the brown-eyed, white girl.” I sighed. “Can you get the new nog started while I go check the lights on the tree?”
“Weeeell, okay. But only because I want to make sure there’s enough of this stuff.”
I headed back to the living room, momentarily interrupted by the surprise slap to the rear end that Krystal delivered as she moved past me into the kitchen. I shook my head, but there was a smile on my face she couldn’t see. We were a strange couple. I’d be the first to admit that, yet in a curious way, we seemed to balance one another well. I helped her plan a bit more, and she helped me do things more spontaneously than I normally would.
Halfway through adjusting the lights, I heard a deafening crash come from my kitchen. My first instinct was frustration and certainty that Krystal had broken my punch bowl. Then I noticed something strange. Vampire hearing is exceptional, so good that I’ve worked on tuning it out most of the time. As I focused, I realized that there were three other people moving about my apartment . . . and only one of them was breathing.
I’d dashed into the kitchen before rational thought could kick in, which is likely for the best since my rational thoughts all center on the principles of running and hiding. The sight that greeted me was far from pleasant. Though I’d reinforced my door after my first few interactions with other parahumans, I had stupidly left my windows unaltered. After all, I lived on the twelfth floor. Who was going to scale a wall and break in?
The answer, it seemed, was the set of men standing in front of an annihilated window. Both were pale and held themselves with a level of balance I was far too familiar with. One wore jeans, a black v-neck shirt, and tattoos covering several hundred pounds of muscle. The other was lean and dressed impeccably in a designer suit, sans tie. He was the one that immediately drew my focus, chiefly because his hand was wrapped around Krystal’s neck as she dangled several feet off the floor.
“Good evening, Mr. Fletcher,” the one holding Krystal greeted. “Forgive the sudden interruption, but I felt it was high time you and I had a discussion. My name is Quinn Thames, though given the closeness of our relationship, you may call me Quinn. My burly compatriot here is Beauregard.” The muscely man smiled at the mention of his name, confirming my suspicions as he flashed a pair of long fangs where his incisors should be. A vampire’s fangs usually
only come out when excited, feeding, or if we will them to. I really hoped those were extended because he felt like showing them off. Neither of those other situations ended well for Krystal and me.
“Close relationship?”
“Certainly. There is no greater bond than between a sire and their child.”
The trepidation that had been seeping through me catalyzed into outright fear. I’d never seen the vampire who made me. I’d just been attacked one night coming home from the grocery store. When I awoke there was no note, no guide, no nothing. I’d been changed and cast aside, which Krystal had eventually explained to me meant my sire was a sick son of a bitch. In the vampire world, that was the equivalent of tossing a newborn baby in a dumpster.
“I never met my sire,” I said carefully.
“No, unfortunately I was called away on unexpected business after your change,” Quinn said, ignoring Krystal’s attempts to kick him in the head. “However, I had great faith that you would become an exceptional vampire. All the makings were there. You were repressed, weak, and constantly trod upon. I anticipated I’d return to this city to find you’d nearly drowned it in blood. To say I am disappointed to find out you were coddling around with an Agent does not begin to capture my displeasure.” He tightened his grip as he spoke, and I could actually hear Krystal’s heart slow down a few beats.
“Let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You see, Fredrick, I specialize in this. I can sense a simmering bloodlust from across a country. Someone like you only needed the power to strike back against the world, power I provided. Given your spectacular failure, I must surmise that the element which kept you suppressed is this young woman right here.” Thankfully, his grip loosened enough to allow more airflow again. Krystal tried to mouth something to me, but without her voice I couldn’t understand her.
“What do you want?”
“Finally to the quick of it, eh? I’ll make this simple. I want you to fulfill your potential. To that effect, I am going to take Agent Jenkins with me. If you want her back, then come to the church at the corner of Eighteenth and Madrigold at midnight. Should you be able to retake her, then she’s yours. If you fail to come, I’ll kill her. If you come and disappoint me again, then I’ll call it quits on this project and kill you both.”
“Whatever you want, let’s just do this now,” I said. There was no way I could take her back. These guys were real vampires, and I was just a guy in a sweater vest. Still, maybe I could give her the chance to escape. Krystal was an Agent, I’d seen her pull off some crazy things before.
I took one step forward and found myself slammed forcefully into the floor. The attack was so hard that it knocked the air out of me. Admittedly, I didn’t really need it. Breathing was mostly habit, but it was still an unpleasant experience. Beauregard looked down at me and flashed another toothsome smile. Even as a new vampire, I can move pretty quickly, and I hadn’t even seen him close the gap between us, let alone grab me. This was not boding well.
“Midnight,” Quinn called to remind me. “And much like yourself, I greatly value punctuality.”
Beauregard gave a swift kick to my torso, then vanished. By the time I pulled myself up, they were both gone. The only evidence they’d even been real in the first place was the inwardly obliterated window that was letting in the cold December air. Oh, and the fact that Krystal was now nowhere to be seen. With more effort than I’d have expected, I dragged myself to the refrigerator and threw open the door. Grabbing a packet of blood, I bit through the top and began guzzling it down, not even bothering to get myself a glass first. The minor wounds Beauregard had given me were already almost healed, but the last thing I needed was to be running on empty tonight. This would top me off and finish the recovery.
“Merry Christmas!” My door slammed open to reveal Bubba, dressed in a Santa suit that barely fit him, along with Neil, Albert, and Amy all in tow. They made it three steps inside before they abnormal surroundings registered and their welcoming cheer gave way to sudden concern.
“Guys,” I said, finishing up the last of my blood packet. “We have a problem.”
2.
By the time I finished explaining what happened, the last of my injuries had finished repairing themselves. Albert was hugging his legs on the ground, a look of intense worry clear on his face. Given Albert’s unnaturally cheerful brain chemistry, that was saying quite a lot. Neil, for his part, was digging through book after book, looking up with cursory glances to indicate he was listening, but continuing his research as I spoke. Bubba and Amy both sat quietly, though midway through my story, Amy pulled out a small flask full of purple liquid and took a quick nip. Other than that, they both listened intently until I reached the part where they’d entered.
“Sounds like the big one had been draining therians,” Bubba said as I fell silent. “As for the guy who grabbed Krystal, we should assume he’s even more dangerous. Vampires on therian blood can be wild and hard to control. If he outpaced you by that much, then he’s had a lot, and that means this Quinn guy is all the more impressive for keeping him as a lackey.”
“There’s no traces of any psychic interference or magic,” Amy said, her eyes glowing the same color as the liquid in her flask as she scanned the room. Sometimes it slipped my mind that Neil’s mentor wasn’t just the girl who spiked our punch with moonshine. She was also a mage regarded as one of the nation’s top alchemists. “Quinn must keep his pet beast on a leash of intimidation, which meshes well with Bubba’s hypothesis.”
“I hope Krystal is okay,” Albert whimpered softly. It was so quiet, in fact, that I’m not sure any of the people with human senses heard it. Bubba and I both did not fall into this category.
“Krystal will be fine,” Bubba assured him. “They don’t just hand out Agent badges to anyone. That girl could kick a dragon in the teeth if it gave her too much sass.” He was doing a good job of sounding sure. However, I was less convinced.
When Krystal and I first reconnected, she’d told me that vampires were big league monsters. It was strange, since I didn’t think of myself as more dangerous than other things I’d seen her curse out without so much as batting an eye, but it seemed obvious these two weren’t like me. They were real vampires. The way Beauregard had trounced me exemplified that perfectly.
“Bubba, what did you mean when you said he was draining therians?” I asked as the curious phrasing meshed with my own recollection of Beauregard’s physical power.
“Drinking the blood of werecreatures, obviously.”
“Oh. Can you smell that in here or something?” I knew from experience that most therians had an adept sense of smell, though my own powerful nostrils weren’t picking up anything out of the ordinary. Of course, that didn’t mean someone with more experience couldn’t notice a subtle cue I’d missed. I got so absorbed in sniffing that it took me a moment to realize everyone save for Albert was staring at me. Even Neil had been drawn out of his rapid page flipping.
“Fred,” Amy broached carefully, “Krystal explained to you what makes vampire such dangerous creatures, didn’t she?”
“She said we were very powerful. I just assumed she meant the strength, speed, and general difficulty to kill.”
Bubba snorted something halfway between a laugh and a grunt of frustration. “That explains a hell of a lot.”
“I feel like I’m missing something.”
“You’re missing a tremendous amount,” Neil told me, returning to his books with a shake of his head.
“Be nice,” Amy snapped at him. “Not everyone has a teacher to ease them into the parahuman world.”
“I’m sorry,” Neil mumbled immediately.
“Good.” Amy turned to me, pausing only to take a pill from a vitamin bottle and dry swallow it. Given that it was glowing a light blue, I highly doubted that it was actually what had originally come in the container. The purple glow began fading from her eyes as soon her throat gulped the pi
ll down.
“Fred, are you familiar with the variety of classic vampire mythology?”
“You mean how in some movies they can fly, in others they turn into fog, or can shape shift into rats or wolves?”
“Exactly,” Amy said. “Most people think the divergence comes from different cultures taking the myth and adding their own spin on it, incorporating aspects they found particularly frightening into an existing monster template. However, that only makes sense if vampires are fictional, which you now know they are not.”
It was strange dealing with Amy sober. I could almost feel the weight of her intellect as she processed the information and made it more understandable for me. Her eyes flitted about constantly, absorbing observations and taking in every piece of data around her. No wonder the woman spent so much time in altered mental states. This must be exhausting for her.
“The reason vampire mythology is so convoluted about what they can and can’t do is that your kind has an ability unique to their species. Vampires can actually take on characteristics and powers of other supernatural creatures.”
“How do they do that?” Albert asked.
“How else?” Neil said, his tone much kinder than I suspect I would have received. “They drink their blood.”
“They . . . we do?” It took considerable self-control to keep my jaw from hanging open in surprise.
“You can,” Bubba said. “The stronger the person they drink from, the more potent the effects, and the longer it lasts. My kind are their favorite targets, since we give them even greater strength, speed, and senses. If they drink from a powerful enough therian, they even gain the ability to change into their animal for a short while.”
“So, we prey on parahumans just as much as regular humans?” Comprehension was shining like the sun, illuminating the strangeness of my encounters with other parahumans in a blinding light of explanation. “That’s why so many people have been wary around me. That’s why even in the supernatural world I was treated with suspicion. They all thought I wanted their blood.”
