by L.H. Cosway
I furrowed my brow, thinking about it before I replied, “That’s still almost forty million vampires in the world.”
He laughed at my estimation. “Did you just do the math?”
“Maybe.”
“Cute.” He paused to study me, a glimmer of affection in his eyes. “The number isn’t so large when you consider that our kind is spread throughout the world. Here in Tribane, there are less than a thousand of us.”
“A thousand vampires are living in this city?” I gaped at him. A thousand super-fast, likely super-strong beings with fangs. A chill ran down my spine. I wouldn’t be getting the sleep I needed any time soon.
“There are, but remember, we don’t kill to feed, so there’s no need to look so startled. Do you have any other questions?”
I thought about it for a minute, trying to recall all the myths I knew about vampires. I decided to start with the obvious. “Can you go out during the day?”
Ethan shook his head. “Sadly, no. Sunlight is extremely uncomfortable for us, and our skin is highly sensitive to its rays. We don’t burst into flame or anything quite so dramatic, but we do get sick if we stay in it for too long. Thus, we are nocturnal by nature.”
“Do you eat regular food, too, or just blood?”
“Just blood.” That sounded kind of depressing. Food made life so much more interesting.
“Don’t you get bored consuming the same thing over and over?”
“On the contrary, every human’s blood tastes different. Some are cheap sauvignon blanc, others expensive champagne. Going by how you smell, yours, I imagine, would be quite something.”
“Well,” I said, feeling a shiver. “You can keep on imagining because I’m never letting you drink it.”
Ethan’s eyes gleamed as though I’d just given him the most delicious challenge. “We shall see.”
My shiver intensified as I swiftly changed the subject. “How often do you need it?”
He casually lifted a shoulder. “Once every few days normally, depending on the individual.”
“Do you sleep in a coffin?”
His eyes were heated now and his voice unexpectedly sultry. “I sleep in a bed. Would you like to see it?”
I rolled my eyes as I tried to suppress the wave of desire washing over me. I wondered what his bedroom was like. Ugh, what was wrong with me? I should be screaming at the top of my lungs, begging to get out of this room, yet here I was, interviewing him like I was the host of some late-night talk show.
“That won’t be necessary,” I finally replied, and he smirked. “You said that Delilah is half-human. Does that mean vampires and humans can reproduce?”
Now he shot me a lazy grin. “Yes, we can reproduce. Although the infant mortality rate for vampire/human pregnancies is extremely high. Very few of the infants survive past their first year, even when they do make it to being born. Delilah is a rare and lucky case.”
“Are you immortal?”
“No, but vampires can live very long lives. Sometimes up to a thousand years.”
“Wow, that’s … incredible. How old are you?”
“Old enough,” he stated, evading my question. I arched an eyebrow and folded my arms. He sighed. “I’ll be two hundred and seventy-seven this year.”
My mouth fell open. “What?!” That was old. Too old. I began to see him in a whole new light. “You’re old enough to be my grandfather several times over,” I blurted.
He moved closer, his voice washing over me as his breath hit the back of my neck. “Do I look like your grandfather, Tegan?”
Shivers encapsulated me as I swallowed thickly. “No, I guess you don’t.”
A moment of thick silence ensued, and my head filled with even more questions. Imagine living that long, through all of that history. The world must seem so different from his perspective. My eyes met his, and I saw his nostrils flare as he breathed me in. “Can I see your fangs?” I whispered. There was a flash in his eyes, then a low growl rumbled from the back of his throat. Wow, I’d never actually heard a person growl before.
I didn’t dislike it.
“It is a very intimate thing for us to reveal our fangs. It’s a sign that we’re attracted.”
My eyes practically bugged out of their sockets. “Oh!” I exclaimed. “Well, never mind then. Forget I asked.”
“You may see them if you wish ...” he murmured.
I couldn’t help but look at his mouth as two white fangs elongated down and over his lips. A foreign urge made me want to reach out and touch them, but I resisted. I turned away, feeling overwhelmingly nervous and shy all of a sudden. “You can put them away now.” Ethan gave a husky laugh, and the next time I looked at him his fangs had retreated inside his mouth.
“Now I must ask you for something,” he said, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Will you promise to keep this to yourself, to not tell anyone of what we are?”
The way he posed the question made it seem like I could be all, Sorry, no. I’m off to shout your secret from the rooftops, and he’d be like, Oh no, please don’t do that. In reality, he’d probably have to kill me.
And that right there was a sobering thought.
I levelled him with a steady look. “I promise. Your secret’s safe with me.”
He reached out and lifted my hand. I watched in fascination as he brought it to his lips and pressed a delicate kiss to my skin. The sexy yet gentlemanly gesture took me by surprise. I inhaled a sharp breath at the unexpected, pleasurable feeling of his mouth on me. “Thank you, Sunshine.”
I shot him a sassy grin. “You’re welcome, Blondie.”
He grinned right back at me. “I’ll take you home now if you’d like.”
I nodded, and he led me from his office. My entire worldview had tilted since I entered this room. Now I had to come to terms with the fact that there were far more things out there than my small mind could even conjure. I pulled my phone from my pocket, finding several missed calls and a text from Nicki.
Nicki: Where have you gone? Amanda’s completely out of it. We need to bring her home. Text me when you see this. I’m worried about you.
I typed out a quick reply.
Tegan: I’m so sorry! I was in the VIP section. Please let me know if Amanda’s okay.
If what Ethan said was true, then she should recover well enough from Lucas’s bite, so long as he didn’t feed from her a second time. Ethan led me to his SUV, opening the passenger side door and helping me in. We got stuck in traffic on the way to my apartment, and I noticed Ethan kept glancing suspiciously in his rear-view mirror.
“Is everything all right?” I asked, wondering what had him so on edge.
He continued to frown at the mirror. “Do you see that green van behind us?”
“Yes.”
“We’re being followed.”
“Followed by who?”
“Not sure, probably slayers.”
I blinked several times. “Slayers? As in Buffy?”
“Not at all so palatable I’m afraid. I haven’t had the chance to explain to you yet, but there are groups of humans aware of our existence, hostile groups whose sole purpose is to bring about our extinction.”
I absorbed this information as Ethan made a sharp turn around the next corner. Followed by another and then another. All the while the green van made the exact same swift turns on the road.
So, we were being followed then.
7.
Ethan didn’t drive to my apartment. Instead, he brought us to the outskirts of the city. It took about twenty minutes, but still that green van blatantly followed us. I grew more nervous by the second. There could be ten or more people huddled in there, and there was only one of Ethan. I doubted I’d be much use in a fight. And what if they mistook me for a vampire? Would I die with a wooden stake to my heart?
“Are stakes as lethal to you as the myths say they are?”
“Yes, that one is true. Although the problem for slayers is that we can move much faster than th
e average human. It’s a momentous feat if they get to us in time. They might be aiming directly for our hearts one second, but in the same amount of time we could already be ten yards away.” There was a pause as he looked from the road to me. “Are you worried?”
“No.” I lied, a clot of fear clogging my throat.
He sent me a reassuring smile. “There’s absolutely no need to worry, Tegan. I won’t let anything happen to you.” His voice was steel and undiluted power. I supposed a vampire could get fairly good at fighting off slayers with two hundred and seventy-odd years of practice.
If you told me earlier today that this was a thought I’d be having I would’ve laughed you out of the room.
“You see the licence plate?” Ethan asked.
“What?”
“The licence plate on the van. It contains the letters DOH. That’s how I know they’re slayers. They call themselves the Defenders of Humanity. DOH for short.”
“There must be a lot of money in the slaying business,” I joked anxiously. “It’s only the big shots who can afford snazzy personalised licence plates.”
Ethan laughed at that, loud and boisterous. “Lucas likes to call them Dickhead Onanistic Humans.”
“Onanistic?”
“It means to be fond of touching oneself,” he explained.
“Ah, I see.”
“I find it amusing,” Ethan said, chuckling away.
“Maybe that’s because you developed your sense of humour back in the eighteenth century,” I teased.
He smiled wide now. “I like it when you give me shit. It’s fun. Hold on.” Before I had a chance to ask why, he swerved the car around a corner and into an abandoned looking industrial estate. Ethan turned off his headlights, plunging us into darkness.
“I’m going to have to fight them,” he said, turning to me. “You must promise me that you’ll remain inside the car until it’s finished. I’ll make sure to keep them as far away from you as possible.”
I gulped, my mouth suddenly sandpaper-dry. “Do you really have to fight them? I mean, do you even know how many there are?”
“They usually hunt in groups of five or six. Don’t worry, I could handle twice that.”
“You could?” I asked, stunned.
Ethan didn’t answer. Instead, he deftly swung the car around in a circle and stopped so that we were facing the van of slayers. I started to hyperventilate. He placed his hand on the door handle, turning back to me a moment. “How about a kiss for good luck?” With his carefree attitude, you wouldn’t think he was about to take on a group of slayers intent on his demise.
“How about a slap?”
He gave a devilish grin. “Next time then.”
There was a blur of movement as Ethan emerged from the car, using his vampire speed. He stopped when he reached the middle-point between his SUV and the slayers’ van. The full moon was the only source of light. I wrapped my arms around myself, clutching tightly to the seat belt strapped across my body. I had never been so on edge in my entire life.
Ethan stretched out his arms and flexed his hands in preparation as though to rile them. The van doors slid open and three men got out on either side.
Three and three equalled six against one. Each of the slayers was tall. Oh, and did I mention that every one of them had an array of weapons strapped to their chests? The slayers made a V-shaped formation around Ethan. He loosened his shoulders, readying himself for the challenge.
A second later, the first slayer attacked. He launched his blade at Ethan, who sped to the left, avoiding it. Next, the slayer grabbed something from his chest strap. It took me a moment to realise it was a wooden stake. He launched it through the air at Ethan, and a manic laugh escaped me when Ethan’s hand shot out, snatching the stake in mid-air like a frisbee. He tossed it aside and flew at the slayer as two others tried to attack him from behind.
“Look behind you!” I yelled from my open passenger window.
He must’ve heard me because he turned around swiftly, grabbing one of the slayers by the throat. And then, well, things got a little too real. Ethan’s fingers sank into the man’s throat like they were sharp claws. Blood sprayed, the liquid a black ink in the dark. I yelped in sheer terror as he proceeded to rip his throat out.
Suddenly, my fear transferred onto Ethan. He wasn’t the mysterious, mildly flirtatious vampire I thought he was. He was a cold-blooded killer vampire. He turned around swiftly to meet his next victim. For less than a fraction of a second, I could see him clearly in the moonlight. His fangs were out and his eyes were black as coal. Just like Lucas when he’d been feeding on Amanda.
I watched in terror as he sank his fangs into another man’s throat before tossing his limp body aside. He made short work of most of the others, leaving only one. This slayer seemed to be the best fighter of the six, and he was fast enough to keep up with Ethan. Unfortunately, he was still human. Ethan caught up with him, punching the slayer right in the face, possibly breaking his nose judging from the spray of blood. The slayer sprawled unconscious on the ground as Ethan moved in for the kill. My heart pumped faster than ever before. Having witnessed more death tonight than I ever imagined I would in a lifetime, I opened the car door.
“Don’t!” I shouted as I emerged from the SUV.
Ethan’s shoulders tensed, stilling at the sound of my voice. “Get back inside!” he commanded.
“Don’t kill him,” I begged. “He’s no threat to you anymore.”
“I have to,” he responded, sounding tired, pained, and a little remorseful. He hadn’t planned to kill these men tonight. They were the ones hunting him, but their hunt backfired.
“Ethan—"
“I said get back in the car, Tegan. I have to finish this.”
On instinct, I ran to him and placed myself in the way of the unconscious slayer. I couldn’t bring myself to touch Ethan because I was still terrified after seeing him kill. I put my hands out, gesturing for him to stop and try to see things from my perspective.
“What difference will it make if you spare one life out of six?”
“You don’t understand how this works. If I don’t kill him now, he’ll keep coming back for me until one of us is dead.”
“Or maybe he’ll see that you showed him mercy and change his perception of vampires,” I countered.
“You’re foolish if you believe that.”
“Kill this man and you’ll never see me again,” I threatened and that seemed to strike a chord in him.
A long moment of quiet elapsed before he relented, “Fine. I’ll let him live if that is what you want.”
“It is,” I said, my voice jittery from fear and adrenaline.
“Very well then.” He turned slowly and began walking back toward his car.
“Are you just going to leave them here like this?” I asked, unable to look at the bodies littering the ground. If I did, I’d be in danger of throwing up. “Won’t somebody find the bodies and call the police?”
“The DOH keeps tracking devices in all of their vehicles. Once they see that this van has been stationary in a remote area for a period of time, backup will come. Then they’ll take away the bodies.”
“You seem experienced with this kind of thing,” I said, my stomach turning.
“I’ve been defending myself and my species for a very long time. It’s only natural that I have also learned the procedures of my enemy.”
We reached his SUV, but I hesitated to get in. Seeing him kill was terrifying, and though technically, I knew he was only defending himself, it still made me incredibly wary. Strike that, I was horrified. He said that vampires didn’t kill to feed, but they still killed. At least, Ethan did. What he’d done tonight was the behaviour of a seasoned professional, not a novice.
I considered calling a taxi, but I doubted they’d come all the way out to this creepy abandoned place. No, the best course of action was to allow Ethan to drive me back to the city. Then I could figure out how to rid him from my life for good. Because
I sure as hell wanted no part in a world that involved vampires and slayers, witches and mysterious spells. I wanted to go back to the safety and security of normality.
Reluctantly, I climbed into the passenger seat and strapped on my seatbelt, trying not to fixate on how Ethan was covered in the blood of the men he’d just murdered.
“I’ll take you home now,” he said in a quiet, solemn voice.
8.
For most of the journey back to the city I just sat there, unmoving. Maybe it was the overload of information that caused me to zone out.
In a single night I discovered that, one, vampires were real. Two, they drank human blood. Three, their eyes went black when they fed. Four, they were adept at killing humans when outnumbered. And five, there was an organised group of slayers which was actively trying to wipe them out.
A single image kept replaying over and over in my head; Ethan’s hands gripping that slayer’s neck. He quite literally tore the man’s throat out. It was like something from a horror movie.
After several minutes of staring dead-eyed at the dashboard, I regained my focus and returned to the present. “Country Roads” by John Denver played on the radio. The song couldn’t be more benign, but right then it was terrifying. Ethan’s attention was fixed straight ahead like a serial killer who liked listening to country and western music after a kill.
He glanced at me out the corner of his eye, flecks of blood spattering his face. “You’re in shock,” he stated. “I can bring you to my home and take care of you there. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
“No, thank you. I want to go to my apartment. And I’m not in shock. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to be sick.”
“I assure you,” I told him calmly but firmly. “I’m perfectly well.”
A while later, we arrived at Singh Square. I still hadn’t given him my full address, and thankfully, he didn’t ask for it. Despite my protestations of being fine, I wasn’t. Far from it. But I needed to fake it for now, otherwise, I might break down and curl up into a distressed ball in the corner of his car and never leave. As soon as the SUV came to a stop, I was out of there. Ethan caught my wrist before I had a chance to fully escape.
