by Beth Alvarez
“Yeah, yeah,” Josh grumbled, slinking around the corner to join Thaddeus at the front door. “I’m done.”
Thaddeus gave him a long, appraising look, his mouth tightening. “Either you’ll need to grow a beard, or we’ll have to teach you how to shave. The organization will likely be lenient today, as you are potentially our newest addition, but it is a business environment and you will be expected to look the part.”
Josh jammed his hands into his pockets, letting his eyes slide down the tall vampire and his crisp suit. “Like you?”
“Indeed.” Thaddeus held out a black umbrella. Josh blinked in confusion.
The old man pushed it toward him again. “My vehicle’s windows are heavily tinted, but it is daylight. Unless you wish to repeat your adventures with the sun from yesterday, I suggest you carry one of these.”
Sheepish, Josh took the umbrella and undid the strap holding it shut while Thaddeus took another from the rack beside the door.
“So where are we going?” Josh asked, following Thaddeus out onto the porch. He popped his umbrella, angling it over his head.
“The local office,” the old man replied, leading the way to a sleek black sedan in the driveway. “Nearly every major city has a Keeper’s office.”
“And where are we?” Josh rested his umbrella against his shoulder, twirling it by the curved handle as he turned to look up at the stately Victorian house.
“My residence. You will be staying with me until you are assigned elsewhere.”
“Great. I’m sure you’ll be a real exciting roommate.”
Thaddeus gave him an unimpressed frown before opening his car door. “Get in. It’s unlocked.”
Josh rounded the car and opened the door, angling his umbrella to block the morning sun as he climbed in. Then he sat, staring at the umbrella and the open door, unsure how to proceed.
Thaddeus watched in silence as he struggled with them, awkwardly moving the umbrella with his hands and trying to pull the door shut with his foot. Neither effort proved effective.
Gritting his teeth, Josh tried to collapse the umbrella and pull the door shut at the same time. He pinched his fingers in the umbrella twice and shut his foot in the door once before he finally worked it out, snapping the umbrella closed and slamming the car door, sunlight blistering his arm in the process.
Hissing in pain and frustration, Josh flung the folded umbrella into the floorboard and glared at the old man in the driver’s seat. “What?”
“Nothing,” Thaddeus said, putting the car in gear. “That was actually quite good, for a first try.”
Dumbfounded, Josh stared in silence as the old man drove.
Josh had been through downtown Nashville a million times, but he’d never imagined they’d stop there. He’d expected something unusual, maybe hidden underground. The plain, two-story, red brick building they parked behind was nothing of the sort. It was so ordinary he never would have given it a second glance.
“Has it always been like this?” he asked in a low voice, studying the darkened glass windows on the unremarkable building. “Vampires hiding in plain sight?”
Thaddeus smirked. “You learn quickly.”
Josh started to reply, pausing when he saw the old man pick up his umbrella.
Popping the door without letting it open, Thaddeus wedged the tip of the umbrella in between the car’s frame and door, sliding it upward until he could press the button at the top of the shepherd’s crook handle. The door opened just enough to let the automatic umbrella push through and spring open, then he pushed the door open wide and stood beneath the umbrella’s shade.
Josh took his own umbrella from the floor and mimicked the process.
“Don’t lose that umbrella,” Thaddeus said gruffly, evidently no longer impressed by how quickly he caught on. “Most retailers don’t sell automatic umbrellas with a curved handle. All of mine are custom-made and rather expensive.”
“What difference does the shape of the handle make?”Josh leaned the umbrella against his shoulder again, trailing behind Thaddeus on the way to the door.
“The crook handle is clearly superior. You can hook it beneath your forearm while retrieving things out of the car, and the wind will be unable to snatch it away. You’ll find most of us favor them for that reason.” Thaddeus pulled open one of the glass doors, motioning Josh inside. “We’ve been burned quite enough.”
The reception desk just inside the foyer looked like any other, the middle-aged woman behind it offering a stiff nod to Thaddeus before giving Josh a curious look.
“Good morning, Matilda.” Leave it to Thaddeus to make it sound like anything but a good morning. He folded his umbrella. “This is Joshua Rook. He will be training with me today.”
“Ah... the Rook boy. I heard about your case,” Matilda said, pity shadowing her eyes. “My condolences.”
Uncondoled, Josh responded with an unconvincing smile.
“Come along, then,” Thaddeus said with considerably more cheer, starting down a hallway to the left of the desk with a surprising spring in his step.
They passed dozens of cubicles and offices, all containing men and women of varying ages and appearances, but all of them revealing fangs as they chatted with coworkers or spoke into phones.
Josh cleared his throat, jogging a few steps to close the distance between them. “So, I don’t mean to be rude, but... What exactly is this place? What are these people doing?” All they’d spoken of during their interview was the extent of his skills and what would be expected of him as far as clerical duties went.
“I’m glad you asked. These people,” Thaddeus said with a yellow-fanged grin, “are Keepers. You said before that you thought vampires were nocturnal. They are, which is one of the reasons we are not. A legion of undead hides among the living, and the only reason you don’t know they’re there is us. Keepers are the linchpin that holds our societies together.”
He pushed open the door to an office and Josh stopped to read the plaque. It was a simple thing, reading Thaddeus Birch, Keeper, but that it was on an office door instead of a cubicle desk made a big difference. It seemed Thaddeus held considerable clout.
“To remain undetected, vampires require bank accounts, driver’s licenses, mortgages, cell phone providers, the list goes on and on.” Thaddeus sat down behind the large desk in the middle of the office, hanging his umbrella from its edge. “The Keepers manage all of this, acting as a middle man to negotiate with companies and governments both, giving our wards the best existence possible. We help them live as if they’re still alive.”
“And what about us?” Josh asked, unable to restrain himself. “How much living do we get to do?”
Thaddeus eyed him, his gaze darkening.
Josh stared back for as long as he could, though he felt his resolve wavering. He blinked twice, then looked away.
“I understand your longing for adventure,” the old man said eventually, laying his briefcase on the desk and sorting through the papers stashed inside. “I do not share it, but I have trained many who have. Rest easy. There’s more to this job than paperwork. After all, there are two reasons we bear the title of Keeper.”
“Yeah, explain that. You didn’t talk much yesterday.” Josh paced around the office, tugging on drawers in the many file cabinets. Most were locked, but one slid out, revealing a neat row of manila folders inside. He cocked his head as he read some of the labels. All the folders bore the names of nearby cities.
Thaddeus shrugged, sorting his papers into three piles. “As Keepers, we have two jobs. One, we look after our charges. Each Keeper is given a handful of vampires to oversee. We are the shepherds and they are our flock.”
“Sounds like you’re a real hero.”
“The other reason,” Thaddeus went on without rising to the jibe, “is because we are dedicated to keeping the peace by keeping the supernatural under control. If it’s adventure you want, you will be pleased. Every Keeper is allowed to recruit one hunter. If you do your job well, you’ll have y
our own within a year.”
Josh turned enough to cast the old vampire a shaded glance.
Thaddeus smirked. “I see that caught your attention.”
Trying not to seem too interested, Josh flipped through the folders. “What do hunters do?”
“Precisely what their name implies. They hunt. Mine is in Montana right now, looking for a Shunka Warak’in.”
“A what?”
The old man gave him a deep frown. Then, sighing, he drew a ring of keys from his desk. “Third cabinet from the left, second drawer from the bottom.” He tossed the keys without looking.
Josh barely caught them. The ring was weighty, bearing at least a dozen keys. He bounced them in his palm for a minute before turning toward the file cabinets. “You know, if I had a cell phone, I could just look it up.”
“And call any number of people who believe you are dead, I’m sure,” Thaddeus muttered.
Stifling a grumble, Josh fumbled with the keys for several minutes before finding the right one.
Though some files were both familiar and an inch thick, more folders bore odd names. “Sim... Simurgh? What is that?”
“Not typically found outside of Iran. Closer to the front, boy. H comes before I.”
Biting his tongue to keep from snapping, Josh pushed the folders at the front back to view their labels. More familiar names stood out. “Siren? Are these mythological creatures?”
“Supernatural creatures,” Thaddeus corrected. “And so they fall within our jurisdiction.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Deadpan, the old man stared. “Do I look like the sort of man who enjoys jokes, Mr. Rook?”
Had he not heard Thaddeus’s dry chuckle several times, Josh would have suspected the man incapable of laughter. Thinking better of answering, he looked back to the files. “Your hunter is out killing these things?”
“When necessary. Some of them are intelligent enough to reason with. If that’s the case, we Keepers handle the issue ourselves. Although we are certainly allowed to use force if...” Thaddeus paused, licking his fangs as he searched for the word. “...necessary.”
“Then I want to be a hunter.”
Thaddeus burst into laughter, the sound dry and scraping and reminding Josh of a rake against concrete. “Oh, no, dear boy. Your options are Keeper or nothing. Take it or leave it.”
Glowering, Josh leaped to his feet. “What if I don’t want to be a Keeper?”
“Then go give yourself to the sun. No one is stopping you.”
“No one asked me if I wanted to be a vampire!”
“You should be grateful for a second chance at existence,” the old vampire snarled. “No one had to risk themselves to bring you across on the scene of the accident, either! Yet here you are, because your skill set and university grades made you worthwhile. Do you wish to die? Or do you wish to learn?”
Josh didn’t know how to answer. His mouth worked without producing words.
“Then close your mouth and file these papers.” Thaddeus shoved a stack toward the edge of his desk and turned away.
As desperately as he wished he could fire back some wicked retort, his mind emptied in the face of confrontation. Josh snatched the papers off the desk without speaking again, sitting in the middle of the floor.
It was better that way, he decided after a few moments of silence to cool him off. If he was going to get back to his family—and Charlotte—he’d need the old vampire on his side.
“So how often do you leave the office to deal with these... things?” he asked after his temper subsided. He picked up a stapled sheaf of papers in either hand, giving the front pages a once-over. They appeared to be legal documents, each stamped with a large black ’complete’ at the top of the first page. “Finished contracts?”
“Fifth cabinet, ordered by completion date, most recent toward the top and front.” Thaddeus pulled a pair of small, round spectacles from the breast pocket of his jacket, settling them on his nose. “And not often. I am fond of my current hunter and prefer to let him handle as much as possible. I am of more use here.”
“Current hunter? How many have you had?” Josh unlocked the drawer, blinking at the folders inside. The newest was dated two years prior.
“More than my fair share, but mine are effective. We are preferred for difficult tasks.” A hint of pride colored the old man’s voice.
“All these contracts are old.”
“Hmm?” Thaddeus lifted his head. “Oh, yes. Start with the box here behind my desk.”
Josh stood to look, then fought a groan. Four boxes sat behind the large desk, overflowing with a jumble of stamped contracts. He didn’t have to look to know they’d take him hours to sort. Stifling his irritation, he tried to keep the conversation going. “So you have more than one hunter?”
“Only one, and he is quite enough. Only one is permitted. It keeps things balanced, and we are sticklers for rules.”
“What if I’m not?” Josh heaved a box off the stack with a grunt, dropping it next to the open cabinet.
“Then you will learn or you will die.”
“I can’t relocate to another job?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “Once you know what Keepers know, there is no going back. As I said, you take the job, or take the sun. There are no other options.”
“And you don’t think that’s problematic?” Or dramatic, at the very least.
The old vampire grinned, though the gleam in his eyes was unnerving. “Certainly not. After all, ours is the best job the organization has to offer.”
“Why is that?”
“You’re quite full of questions, aren’t you?”
“Considering I woke up dead and get to pick between literal eternity stuck in a dark office or a more serious kind of death, I’d think having questions is a reasonable response.”
Thaddeus made a small sound of agreement in his throat, shaking a pen and scribbling circles against a scrap of paper before tossing it at a wire trash basket beside the door. It missed by several inches. “You are handling the whole situation rather well.”
“Yeah, well, right now I’m just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Josh laid several contracts on the coarse carpet, starting piles for each month.
“You may be waiting for some time.”
Josh paused with a contract in midair. “What does that mean?”
“We will speak later,” Thaddeus murmured. “For now, work.”
* * *
Sorting the contracts in the boxes took most of the day. Josh expected as much, given the sheer number of them, but he’d also expected his training to include more actual training.
Thaddeus answered phone calls, printed and copied paperwork, filled out forms, and spoke to people in his office—both vampires and humans. He had introduced Josh to each new visitor as his apprentice, but carefully excluded him from any and all conversation.
Frustrated but unsure how to express it, Josh resorted to asking even more questions when they had the office to themselves.
“So what if I don’t want to work in the office during the day like this? Are there night positions?” He stuffed the last of the sorted contracts into their place, both relieved and somewhat satisfied. The boxes on the floor behind him were now filled with files destined for the archives, according to Thaddeus.
“There are some, but generally speaking, Keepers are expected to be available for at least some daytime hours. Our charges are nocturnal, so we cannot be. We are the bridge between them and the modern world, remember.” The old man cleaned his desk thoroughly after the last of the day’s work, leaving not so much as a paperclip out of place.
“Then if I’m going to be up and around during daylight, why can’t I see my family?” His frustrations bubbled up as he spoke, choking his words. “Why can’t I at least pretend to have a normal life?”
Sighing, Thaddeus leaned back in his chair and removed his spectacles. “We’ve been over this. Your family held a funeral-”
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“And I’m alive!” Josh pressed his hands to his chest, silently cursing the lack of a heartbeat beneath his fingertips. “How am I supposed to stay here, living and working in the same city I grew up in, thinking I’ll never cross paths with my relatives? My parents, my aunts and uncles, cousins, my brother-” His voice failed him before Charlotte’s name could leave his lips. He swallowed hard to restore it.
“What about my girlfriend?” he went on, subdued. “I’m just supposed to sit back and watch her move on?”
“There are no other choices, Mr. Rook. I understand your difficulties, but there are the rules to contend with. Aside from acting within the capacity of work, where such interactions may be required, Keepers are forbidden from fraternization with humans. A romantic relationship between a Keeper and a human simply could not be allowed.”
“Well, I’m not a Keeper,” Josh spat back.
Thaddeus raised a finger. “Not yet.”
Smothering a cry of frustration, Josh threw his hands in the air and stormed out of the office.
He half expected the old Keeper to come after him, prattling on about how he couldn’t leave the building, but he didn’t. A few vampires cast him curious looks as he hurried back to the front door, but even Matilda at the front desk said nothing.
Josh thrust the door open, sucking in a deep breath as he stepped out into the twilight. Thaddeus told him twice that the Keepers worked long hours. He hadn’t imagined it as a blessing until now, stalking across the parking lot without the sun overhead.
The whole situation was absurd.
Stealing a man back from the brink of death, only to plunge him into immortality and an eternity of loneliness. And for what? A job. A stupid, insignificant job. Josh barked a laugh, scrubbing a hand through his short crop of blond hair. The only reason he’d chased a better job was so he could provide for Charlotte! Something solid, something that would let them start a family together, that would pay for a decent ring.
That ring was what had gotten him in trouble to begin with. She’d posted it on one of her social media accounts and tagged all her girlfriends in what he assumed was a not-so-subtle hint. They’d all gushed about the classically ornate Edwardian styling and how unique it was, being a one-of-a-kind deal from some local artisan jeweler. He’d set his mind on it then, stashing a screenshot of the unreasonable price in his phone to keep him motivated.
