Luke slept until nearly noon the next day, far later than he usually did, but not late enough for his body’s needs. His feet were cold. He’d fallen asleep in his robe, but his feet dangling over the edge of the bed were ice cold. Grunting, he forced his way to his feet and dressed in a T and flannel pajama pants. His favorite pair of slippers seemed the ideal solution to his cold feet problem. After using the bathroom, he followed the smell of coffee and sound of conversation to the kitchen.
Pablo smiled and waved at Luke. “Hey, Luke. The carafe is full of coffee. Sorry, had to rummage through your cabinets to find everything.”
“Coffee,” Luke grunted, fumbling to open his vintage aluminum cabinets and retrieve a coffee cup. With a filled mug in hand, he made his way to the table and sat down. Silence reigned as Luke slowly worked his way through the cup of coffee. By the time he’d finished refilling his cup, the front door opened.
“Is he awake yet?” Delilah called from the entryway.
“Yup, just finished his first cup of coffee,” Pablo replied, then directed his next comment at Luke, “She walked over to King’s to grab burritos. I hope you like chorizo!”
The first genuine smile cracked Luke’s lips. “They do make a fine chorizo breakfast burrito. Hey…if Delilah just got back, who were you talking to?”
“Um. Just the cat.” Pablo looked embarrassed as he stood and grabbed plates from the cabinet and set three spots before grabbing the carafe and sitting back down. “Thanks for getting the burritos! Turns out our boy here has good taste.”
“No worries. I needed to stretch after sleeping on the couch all night.” Delilah turned to Luke. “I’m not a tiny lady, but that cat of yours managed to take up most of the damned couch last night.”
Luke shrugged. “I guess he likes you. He’s usually pickier about who he befriends.”
They all dove into their burritos, leaving nothing but greasy paper wrappers.
“That hit the spot,” Pablo said, patting his stomach. “How are you feeling, man?”
“Taken up for hawks,” Luke replied.
Delilah and Pablo stared back at Luke with puzzled expressions.
Luke shook his head. “Not into antique English phrases? Shit. I feel like shit. I feel like I’ve been whaled on by a whole gym full of meathead bros with kettle bells.”
Pablo and Delilah looked over the exposed skin of Luke’s arms. They were covered in deep, nasty looking bruises. Delilah cringed.
“Does the rest of your body look like that?” asked Delilah.
Luke nodded. “It’s colorful. The armor protected my vitals, more or less, but a kick from a vampire still applies a lot of force to the body. I’ve got a few tender ribs I’m wondering about as well.”
“Alright, healed cuts, mysterious ribs. Judging from the beating we walked in on, you should be in the hospital in critical care. Dish.” Delilah’s face looked like she’d brook no more equivocation.
Pablo looked amused—he knew a bit more about Luke’s secrets than Delilah, and that “bit” was a hefty bite of secret to have. He also looked curious since he knew what Luke had offered him the night they’d discovered some of each other’s secrets was only the tip of a very large iceberg.
Luke kept his face emotion free. “I’m a fast healer.”
Delilah stared at him deadpan, clenching her jaw slightly. “Try again.”
Luke sighed. “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?”
Delilah pursed her lips and gave him a slow nod.
“You’re not going to let this go?”
“No. We saved your ass last night. And judging by the cat that ate the canary look on Pablo’s face, I’m guessing he knows more than he’s told me.” She turned her glare on the werewolf, who put his hands in the air in protest.
“They’re not my secrets to share.”
Luke refilled his coffee cup, shook his head, then started in on his tale. Delilah’s expressions ranged from incredulous to shocked to disbelieving.
“You’re full of shit! Entertaining, but full of it up to your brown eyes.” Her words were more confident than her tone of voice or her facial expression.
“What did you do last night?” Luke asked.
Delilah looked at him, not sure what answer he was seeking.
“You killed vampires alongside a werewolf. I’m just one more oddity of the world you didn’t know about until this morning. Look at my gear. It’s not an affectation,” Luke said.
Delilah eyed the armor sitting off to the side of the kitchen and the swords sitting at the other end of the table. She still looked unconvinced but seemed to be drifting further away from her espoused certainty. “You’re a two-thousand-year-old Roman guy? Whose job is killing vampires?”
“Almost two thousand; just over nineteen-hundred. And Gallic Celt is probably a better description of my heritage. As to slaying, well, it’s more of an all-consuming hobby. It doesn’t pay well; I don’t even get a W2.”
Delilah rolled her eyes at him, her face settling into a pensive expression. She looked at Pablo. “What do you think, wolfboy?”
“I believe him. It’s a pretty crazy story to make up.” He shrugged. “It all fits. I’ve never seen anyone fight the way he does. I think he’s authentic.”
Delilah still looked unconvinced. “It’s just…” She sighed and shook her head.
“You can believe it or not. I am who I am, regardless,” Luke said a bit testily. He cringed at his impoliteness. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I’ll settle for a polite suspension of disbelief.”
Delilah nodded her assent.
“What do I owe for the burritos?” Luke asked.
“Nothing. My treat, Luke,” Pablo replied. Seeing Luke’s confusion, he added, “I buys, so Delilah flies.”
“Thank you.” Luke looked over at his armor and grimaced. “I hate to keep imposing on your kindness, but I need to move my stuff downstairs so I can clean it. I don’t think I can quite handle it yet.”
“I’ll get the armor!” Pablo said.
“I can carry it. It’s not that heavy,” Delilah replied.
“It’s not the weight, it’s the silver in the swords,” Luke commented.
“It burnses, Precious…” Pablo joked, affecting his best Gollum voice. Delilah chuckled and grabbed the swords.
“The scarf too?”
“Nah, leave it. I’ll run it through the wash.” Luke shuffled gingerly to the hallway leading to the laundry room and opened the office door. “OK, hang out here for a moment.”
Luke walked in and activated the switch that opened the bookcase door. “Alright. It’s clear.”
“Holy shit, man! A secret doorway? That’s pretty effing cool,” said Pablo.
“Watch the steps as you go down. It’s a spiral staircase.”
“Hey, uh, Luke, before I walk down into your basement. Let me ask you a question. How do you feel about lotion baskets and pits?” Delilah asked.
Luke chuckled in response. “I give you a one-hundred percent pit free promise, although moisturizing is always a good idea.”
Pablo led the way, followed by Luke; Delilah brought up the rear, so she could escape back up the stairs if it turned out there was a pit. Luke slipped past Pablo and opened the cabinet with the armor stand, then sat in the chair in front of his work area. Pablo set the armor on the rack.
“What’s behind the door? A closet?” he asked.
“Why don’t you take a look. Switches are on the wall to the left.”
“Switches?” Pablo opened the door and flipped on the switches. “Holy. Mother. Of God! This place is HUGE!”
Pablo disappeared into the room, and Delilah and Luke followed. Weapons racks containing a variety of swords, spears, axes, and more lined the walls. A selection of fighting dummies and work out equipment were neatly set up around the outer edges. The centerpiece, literally and spiritually, was the massive sparring area.
“Daaaaamn!” Delilah finally found her voice. “This is tight!”
She walked over to a wooden Kung Fu dummy and ran through a few series of moves, sending up a clatter of wood as the protruding wooden arms rattled in their joints. As she progressed, she sped up, working through a series of blindingly quick punches and blocks that crescendoed into a staccato slap with the heel of her palm to what would have been the dummy’s face. She walked back over with a touch of strut in her stroll, obviously enjoying the stunned look of surprise on Pablo’s and Luke’s faces.
“What? Can’t a lady know some Wing Chun Kung Fu?” She turned to Luke. “So this is your playroom, eh?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know if ‘playroom’ is accurate. It’s my gymnasium, my training center. I have to keep my body honed and my technique good. You don’t live this long if you let your skills deteriorate.”
“It wasn’t skills that were your problem last night. It was going solo. You almost become a ‘Pride goes before the fall’ motivational poster. If we hadn’t been there, you’d have shuffled off your ancient ass’s mortal coil.”
Luke clenched his jaw, breathing heavily through his nose. His fists were balled up tightly.
“Don’t get mad at me. It’s the damned truth,” Delilah added.
“I know. I’m not mad at you. It’s just… That’s the closest I’ve come to dying in a long time. It’s a bitter pill, and I’m having trouble swallowing it.”
“Maybe you should rethink my offer of help?” Delilah tilted her head to a saucy angle.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve teamed up with anyone, and when I do, they always end up dead, and I keep going. Do you know how many deaths are hanging over my head? How many debts you accrue in a life that never ends? How many times you watch the light go out in a friend’s eyes as the last breath slips between their lips? It’s too much. Too much. I need to sit down.”
Luke’s knees were wobbling. The burrito had done him a world of good, but his body desperately needed more time to heal. There was no escaping the beating he’d taken the previous night. Luke made it into the other room and settled back into the chair in front of the workstation.
“I need some music. Slide back those wall panels and grab a record to throw on the player.” Luke turned to the workstation.
“More coffee?” Pablo asked.
“Yes, please,” replied Delilah.
Luke nodded. Pablo headed upstairs.
“You have ‘36 Chambers’ on vinyl? Original Vinyl? And the 180 Gram re-release? Man, that’s dope. My dad would have loved this collection.” She slid the records back into their spot on the shelf. Luke was trying to pry the swords out of their high-test nylon sheaths. Finally, he worked one of them free of the gore-encrusted scabbard. Delilah noticed his struggles.
“Sorry about that. We were kind of in a hurry last night.”
She continued looking through the records while Luke cleaned the weapon, checking for damage, and returning it to a state of readiness. Finishing with the gladius, he worked over the rudis. He was nearly finished when he heard the needle drop, followed by the sound of piano, drum, and bass. They were soon joined by the sound of Miles Davis’s trumpet in the iconic start of “So What.”
“‘Kind of Blue?’ Good choice,” Luke said.
Delilah nodded, acknowledging Luke’s compliment. “Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a Wu-Tang kind of conversation.”
Luke chuckled in response. “No, not quite.”
“You’re quite the vinyl enthusiast.”
“Yeah, music has been a hobby for a while.” Luke rubbed the back of his neck, trying to get it to release some tension.
“You start out jamming to lyres and pan flutes and super old shit like that?” Delilah smirked.
Luke rolled his eyes but smiled at the young woman’s joke. “No, I was largely indifferent to music for most of my life. It made for a good background or a good beat for a dance. Although there have been moments throughout my life where the beauty of music has transfixed me, it wasn’t until the first time I saw Beethoven play the piano that I truly fell in love with music.”
Delilah’s eyebrows jumped up. “Wait, what? THE Beethoven? ‘Moonlight Sonata?’ ‘Ode to Joy?’ You saw Beethoven play? Like for reals?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah, Ludwig van himself.”
“Damn! That must of have been something to see.” Delilah’s eyes twinkled with excitement.
“Ludwig started my love of music. It’s been a life saver over the last two centuries.”
“What now?” Pablo remarked as he returned with coffee for everyone.
“Yeah, the way he casually throws around ‘centuries’ like it's nothing. I’m almost thirty and feel positively ancient some days.” Delilah shook her head, folding her arms across her chest.
Luke and Pablo both looked amused at the double-digit number she’d cited.
“What?” Delilah asked, looking skeptical.
Luke lifted his chin toward Pablo. “How old are you?”
Pablo scratched at the stubble on his chin. “About three hundred.”
“Jesus,” Delilah swore. “You are a couple real old dudes.”
“Some mornings I feel it more than others,” Luke commented.
“Speaking of which, how the hell are you even moving around? When we found you, I expected we’d be taking you to the emergency room, or more likely, the morgue. No more distractions.” It wasn’t a request.
Luke turned around and grabbed the rudis from its stand, handing it to Delilah handle first. “Watch the blade, it’s sharp.”
Delilah looked over the exquisite workmanship as the light reflected off the silver inlay and set the light and dark tones of the wood dancing. Pablo examined it closely without touching it.
Luke rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s the secret to my success.”
Pablo and Delilah looked back and forth between Luke and the rudis with blank expressions.
Luke stared at the rudis in Delilah’s hands with a mix of adoration and revulsion. His jaw worked as his forehead set into a pensive expression, thinking about how best to reveal his secret. “It… It siphons the life force of a vampire and transfers it to me. It heals me and keeps me young. It gives me an edge. I’m faster, stronger, tougher, sharper. It gives me the powers of a vampire so I’m able to counter them.”
“Does it work for everyone?” asked Delilah, a gleam in her eye as she stared at the rudis.
Luke shook his head. “No. It doesn’t. I’ve tried it with others before. It’s tuned to me alone.”
Delilah handed the rudis back to Luke, a slight look of disappointment in her eyes.
“It’s the secret to my immortality, my cruel master…” The sound of loathing in Luke’s voice matched the haunted look in his eyes.
Not wanting to get too deep into his past and its complications, Luke begged off as tired and escorted Delilah and Pablo out of his house with a promise to speak again soon. Even though they’d saved his life, they were mostly strangers, and he wasn’t ready to get that deep with them, not when he still felt physically and mentally drained from his beat down. With them gone, he could return to his quiet, lonely life, except for Alfred, who insisted Luke needed to exercise his arm by petting the orange tabby. Maybe he’d be ready to let them in a bit more when he felt better.