by Winter Reid
In my shock and horror, I couldn’t control the inertia I’d built with my tugging. I landed flat on my back on the pavement, my tug-of-war trophies oozing putrid yellow gunk into my hair.
I tried to sit up but couldn’t. There was a rough, wheezing sound coming from my chest and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs; my breath coming too fast and too short. My heart was screaming and I heard a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Blackness colored the edges of my vision.
My vampire picked me up, carrying me over to a crate down the alleyway. He sat me on top of it, pressing his hands to the sides of my face.
“Breathe,” he ordered, as if I hadn’t been trying to do that already.
It didn’t work.
“Look at me,” he said after a minute more. Oddly, between the sodium street light at the end of the alley and the moon—nearly full, the alley was the brightest environment I’d ever seen him in. Both sources lit his face with a sort of movie-engineered perfection that never happens to me in real life, making his skin look cleaner and fresher than anyone who’d just spent an hour disposing of dead monsters should.
His eyes were blue, light enough that they looked white in places, like pictures I’d seen of the ice shelf in Canada. I liked his hair, partial as I was to all things dark and messy. Even recently cut, it was longer than Jackson’s, sticking up and out in places.
“Who cut your hair for you?” I asked when I could speak.
He fought a smile. “There was a man offering to do it for the people who live on the streets.”
“That was nice of him,” I said, a little dazed.
“It was.”
“Did you eat him after?” I snapped, coming around.
“No.”
After a few minutes, I pointed at the rotting vampire corpse. “That was your fault, you know.”
“How was that my fault?”
“You knew I killed him. You came to me that night. I had his blood all over me.”
“I come to you every night. You just don’t always see me,” he answered. “And I knew you fought a vampire. I didn’t know you killed one. You should have told me.”
“Really? When? When you were slamming me up against the wall or breaking my wrist?”
“I didn’t break your wrist,” he pushed back. “Maybe after you broke my nose with a paperweight.”
“You almost killed me!” I yelled. “Twice.”
He didn’t respond to that, watching me quietly until I settled back down. “I did,” he said. “And I’m sorry for it.”
“Did you bring me a present?” I asked eventually.
His eyebrows went up. “Besides weapons advice and corpse disposal?”
“Those don’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because those were spur of the moment acts; not gifts. You didn’t have to think about them. Plus you should have told me that stuff before.”
“I’ve never made a vampire for whom these things were an issue so early before.”
“Is that a no then? To my present?”
Moving his hand down to catch my chin, he ran his thumb across my lower lip and leaned in closer. “I remember being lost at sea one night. Falling off a wooden ship that broke apart against rocks during a storm. I don’t know if it’s a memory or a dream I have over and over. I don’t know where it was or when, but I remember struggling to breathe and the taste of the water. The salt in my mouth and nose, and the way it burned my eyes.”
I reached up between us and touched my fingers to the strong angle of his jaw. I let them linger there a minute and then dropped them into my lap, looking away.
“Okay,” I said finally.
“Okay,” he answered.
It was nearly dawn by the time we got back to my building.
“I’ll walk you up,” he said.
“That’s not necessary,” I yawned.
I’d never been so exhausted or filthy, my legs and arms shaking and weak. I smelled like a dog that had rolled in long-dead possum and then gone to a barbeque which wasn’t, I realized, all that far from the truth.
He took my keys and opened the building door, ushering me inside before the frat boys walking toward us could get close enough to pick up on the smell. I trudged up the stairs, stopping in front of my apartment. He keyed that door open as well, sticking his head inside for a minute before he returned to me. I felt a little awkward, unsure how to end the evening or what to say—Hey thanks for saving my quasi-life and getting me bitch-slapped by a dead guy?
I looked at him. “So, thanks,” I said at last.
He reached out and picked a chunk of greasy, slimy hair off my forehead, smoothing it back away from my face. Leaning in, he touched his mouth to mine. His lips dry and warm. It wasn’t a lover’s kiss so much as a love kiss, short and chaste and gentle.
When he was finished, he reached into his pocket, pulling out two sets of fangs.
“Souvenirs,” he said, dropping them into my palm along with my keys. “I’m coming back tonight. You’ll be here.”
And then he disappeared down the hall, leaving nothing but the sound of his feet on the stairs.
Chapter Seventeen
I pulled on black track pants and a black knit shirt. Unfortunately, I didn’t see how to get around the shine on my sneakers, and coloring the reflective tape with black marker might have looked a tad suspicious.
In the kitchen, I pulled my new gun out of the cupboard. It was big and black and scary. While I’d never been a big fan of the NRA, I had to admit I was glad they were such a powerful force in the state. Waiting two weeks for a gun would have put a serious dent in my plans to shoot the shit out of some very bad non-people. I took the bullets down from their hiding spot as well, loading the gun very carefully and checking to make sure the safety was on.
“What are you doing?” my vampire asked, breaking the silence so abruptly that I shrieked and dropped the gun on the floor.
He stood quietly in the doorway, blending in with the shadows. I pressed the heel of my palm to my chest, pushing to slow my heart.
“You,” I said, shaking my head, “have got to start knocking.”
“What are you doing?” he repeated, ignoring me.
“Getting ready,” I said, bending down to retrieve my firearm.
He got there first, taking the metal in his hands and turning it over. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” he said.
“What’s to understand?” I asked. “I’m killing vampires.”
“I’m a vampire.”
“So watch your back.”
“You’re a vampire, too.”
I felt my stomach churn. “Not yet.”
“A matter of months,” he said.
I frowned at him. “I know.”
“Then why?” He sat at the table, laying the gun down in front of him and folding his hands together. “If I’m going to help you, it’s something I have to know.”
“Are you helping me?” I asked.
“Answer the question.”
I leaned back against the stove and looked at him. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Is it?”
“It’s not as if I’m unprovoked,” I said. “For twenty-eight years I didn’t believe in the supernatural, like, at all. And now I’ve been attacked by vampires twice in the last month. It’s like I’ve suddenly become some sort of bloodsucker magnet.” I struggled to keep from sounding whiny.
He flinched. It was quick but I saw it.
“What?” I pressed. “What haven’t you told me?”
He rose, coming to stand in front of me, closer than would have been comfortable if he had been anyone else, and it occurred to me that our history had something to do with my acceptance of that, sandwiched together as we’d been in the hole.
“It’s my fault,” he said, whispering.
“What is?” I asked, just as quietly.
“I’ve turned you into something…” he trailed off, looking at my mouth.
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I snapped my fingers. “Focus.”
“… very hard for them to ignore,” he finished.
“And why is that?”
He sighed and turned away, walking back toward the table though he didn’t sit down.
“Vampires are territorial to a fault. We generally don’t roam in packs or covens.” He sneered the last word. “At most you’ll find pairs of us, though even that is less common once a new vampire is able to hunt alone. It’s not uncommon for vampires to kill each other over hunting grounds or possessions.”
“Possessions?”
“You’ve taken my blood,” he answered. I must have looked confused because he felt it necessary to clarify. “You smell like me. You’re… mine.”
My mouth fell open. “You bastard.”
He came closer again. “But you still smell human, too. So you ignite twin hungers: blood and violence. It’s part of the reason our existence remains a rumor. We have a tendency to kill each other’s young before they turn completely.”
I slapped him and he caught my wrist on the way down.
“You’re always fucking hitting me,” he said, stealing my words. His eyes flashed, and I felt his body through his clothes. He pushed against me ever so slightly, dipping his head down closer to mine. I felt his breath against my mouth.
“Not lovers,” I whispered.
“So you’ve said,” he answered, releasing me.
We walked through the crowd on St. Catherine Street, over to the Historic District where I’d seen the vampire in the bakery door. It felt like years since that night.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I don’t know how many vampires there are in the city or where they stay.”
“What do your instincts tell you?”
“That they like places where there’s not a lot of activity. Where people are alone or won’t be missed.”
“Very good. Now where have you seen them so far?”
“Um, the running trails, obviously.”
He nodded.
“Then one here and two in the industrial district.”
“Good. If there were any more in the industrial district, you’ve likely chased them off for the time being. Where else do you think you might find one?”
“I have an idea. It’s a bit of a hike, though.”
He smiled. “Lead the way.”
Forty minutes later we stopped at the edge of a Love’s truck stop next to the interstate, just east of the city limits.
“Marvelous,” he said, looking over at the highway, at the endless strings of taillights and headlights stretching in either direction, each car an abacus bead sliding from one horizon to the other.
“But,” he continued after a few minutes, shifting his focus to the steady stream of cars gassing up at the station, drivers and passengers running inside for snacks and drinks, “neither quiet nor isolated.”
“Well, not here,” I said and grabbed his hand, pulling him back into the darkness and skirting around the perimeter of light flooding the front parking lot. Sneaking behind cedars and dumpsters, we circled around to the back lot where the lights were fewer and farther between. A dozen eighteen-wheelers sat in the extra-long spaces, idling quietly.
We crept a little deeper into the woods, stopping on a west-facing slope where we still had a good view of the parking lot but wouldn’t be seen.
“Runaways, travelers, and prostitutes,” I whispered, sitting down in the leaf litter.
He crouched beside me.
“What do you smell?” he asked.
“French fries and car exhaust.”
“Look deeper.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated: food, cars, the woods, and… there it was. The faint scent of a monster. Not the grime or unwashed pee smell I’d picked up before, but the smell of their actual skin. Their essence. Eau d’ vampire. It wasn’t fresh, though. More like olfactory leftovers—the smell of breakfast bacon in the kitchen that lingers until lunch.
“He’s not here right now,” I said.
My vampire smiled at me. “Most likely this is a place where he hunts but doesn’t stay.”
I took another deep breath. “I can smell you, too,” I said, my voice a little broken on the last word.
He smirked, the cocky bastard.
“What I mean is, if we can smell him, won’t he be able to smell us?”
“It depends on where his focus is. How long it’s been since he’s eaten. How old he is.”
I played with a leaf by my foot. “When you die, will all of your minions die too?”
“My minions?” he asked, and I suddenly felt foolish.
“Yes. Other people you’ve turned. Your… vampire children,” I finished lamely.
“You’re asking if they all will perish with me? If you will perish?”
“Yes.”
He smiled again. “You can’t kill me, and we are hardly so provincial. Besides, I can count the number of humans I’ve turned in the last five hundred years on one hand.”
“Good for you,” I snapped.
He gave me a dark look. “There was a time when I made many more.”
“I don’t want to hear about this.” I turned my face away, watching a trucker jump down off his rig and head to the shower area.
He caught my chin, bringing me back around to face him. “Then why did you ask?”
Sometime later he nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. I’d fallen asleep, leaning into his shoulder. He didn’t speak, only pointed toward a blue-cabbed semi parked a short distance away from the rest. The passenger door opened and the first thing that came out was a stiletto-heeled cowboy boot, followed by a leg in skintight jeans, and then the whole woman: tight t-shirt, long mahogany hair, and a big purse that could have contained everything she owned and probably did. She was smiling and chatting with the driver.
I caught a quick movement to the side of the scene and realized my vampire hadn’t been pointing to her, but to the dark shape tucked into a cedar tree just out of sight.
The woman took a little hop off the cab’s side step and waved at the driver as he pulled out. Digging in her purse, she pulled out a vape pen and sat on the curb.
The dark shape crept closer.
“He’s gonna kill her,” I whispered.
My vampire nodded but didn’t move to stop him.
I gave him WTF eyes and jumped up, shoving two fingers in my mouth and blowing a New York taxi whistle.
The woman’s head snapped up. So did the shadow’s. My vampire looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
The shadow growled. Low, but loud enough that the woman heard it, cursed, and ran off toward the station. He rushed toward us then, barreling through the brush. I forgot who I was and who I was with and did the only thing that made sense in that moment. I ran.
Ridiculously, I moved deeper into the woods, farther and farther away from the station. The vampire crashed through the forest behind me and it hit me that whatever was left of my life would be spent being chased by bloodsucking maniacs.
The ground gave way with a quick dip I didn’t see and I fell… again… smacking the side of my head on the base of an elm tree. I managed to get to my feet before he reached me, rough hands grabbing at my clothes, snarling, spitting.
My vampire struck the other one from behind with a blow to the kidneys that dropped him like a bowling ball. He yanked the bloodsucker up to his knees, holding him steady with a boot to his back, his captive’s arms stretched out behind his body.
“Do it,” my vampire ordered.
My head was ringing as I pulled the gun from my pocket. I took a step toward them. I could see the vampire clearer now. He wasn’t like the others. He was cleaner for one thing. His hair cut short, clothes modern and neat. He was gasping, trying to recover from the kidney shot, looking at me like he wanted to say something. Like he’d speak if he was able.
“You wanted this,” my vampire snarled. “Now do it.”
“I don’t think I can,” I whispered.
The vampire had a boy’s face, eighteen or twenty, even though he was probably older than me by decades if not centuries.
“Please… don’t,” he wheezed. “I’m sorry.”
I hesitated, lowering the gun.
“No talking,” my vampire barked. Then he looked at me. “Either kill him now or I release him and we’re done with this.”
“I can’t do it.” I shook my head, crying.
“Fine,” he said and let go.
The vampire roared and lunged at me.
I shot him in the head three times.
He fell to the ground and my knees gave out, my vampire catching me on the way down, wrapping his arms around my waist and carrying me over to the far side of the tree where I couldn’t see the body. I slid down the trunk, my shirt riding up, bark scraping my back.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked him.
Squatting in front of me, he took the gun from my hand. “In the end? It was you protecting yourself.”
I swallowed hard. “He looked so different… so different from the others.”
“He was.”
My mouth was dry. “He looked like you. You now. Not you then.”
I wasn’t sure if I was making sense but my vampire nodded, tucking a loose wave back behind my ear.
“We’re not bound by the same physical and social necessities humans are. There are those among us who chose to live in a way more natural to our condition. The vampires you’ve encountered up to now were among them. They’re generally more visible and aggressive than those of us who integrate.”
“Are you saying there are different sects of vampires?”
“In a sense.”
“He was so…” I trailed off.
“Human,” my vampire finished.
Chapter Eighteen
The randomness of what we’d done was an iron weight on my heart as we made our way back into the city. Regret and rationalization warred in my chest while images of both of them, the vampire and the woman he would have slaughtered, flashed through my mind.
