Blood. Drinking it. Tasting it. Exalting in it. The sexual act of feeding was one of the sickest parts of my existence. I was straight as an arrow, but it felt more intimate killing this man than it had when I’d lost my virginity in a thoroughly humiliating encounter with Gina Gentle at age sixteen.
Okay, bad example.
I’d starved myself of human blood for almost two years, trying to atone for a fucked-up moment when a monstrous vampire named Theodore Eaton had starved me then unleashed me on a little girl named Sarah. I’d fed on animals, corpses, and blood bags in hopes of never having something like that happen again but broke my rule in my battle with Renaud. Now I fed from humans exclusively.
Friends, prostitutes, foes, and the occasional traveler who reacted to the “ten” rule. Which is, if you ask ten people whether you can bite them, chances are one person would say yes. It was, according to David’s brother Bill, how he got laid all the time despite being a dumpy geek with a comb-over. God this guy tasted so good.
I could “read” the blood as it passed through my mouth, one of the abilities I’d picked up with my unexpected power boost last year. I learned the demonkin’s real name was Alexander, that he wasn’t even demonkin, that he was a dhampyr wizard, and that he’d gained his power by selling his soul to a possessed mortal. He’d been sent here by his master, who I couldn’t make out for whatever reason, and almost certainly had been expected to die. I needed more information.
I tried to pull back when the demonkin’s heart stopped pumping, signaling the moment of death. I failed and continued to suck every little bit of the wound I’d greeted, chewing on the artery for every little drop I could get. It seemed my hunger had grown with my strengthening as a vampire, which was usually the opposite of how vampirism worked. The more I drank, the more I wanted.
Fuck. I needed to drive away the hunger before I hurt someone else. I forced myself to pull back and said, aloud, “Think unvampy thoughts. Think unvampy thoughts. Think unvampy thoughts.”
Grandma. Garbage. Pollution. Roadkill. Murder. That last one just triggered a cavalcade of images even as I experienced a brief memory flash of all the dozens of people I’d killed in Iraq. Then I thought of all the people I’d killed as a vampire. I wanted to feel revulsion for the memories, but I couldn’t. Vampires were predators, and the rebirth eliminated whatever part of our brains that felt disgust at violence or killing. We could make ourselves feel guilty, force ourselves to hate what we were, but looking at the wide-eyed corpse on the ground, I couldn’t deny what I was.
I heard a knocking on the door, followed by David’s voice. “Hey, how bad is it in there?”
“You heard the gunshot I take it?” I asked, sighing.
“What? No. I meant the shit. What gunshot?”
“Uh, no gunshot!” Right, smooth Peter. Real smooth. I’d forgotten about the silence ward on the door.
“Do I need to call the cops?” David asked.
“Yes, because they have ever been a help in my life,” I muttered. “No, David, don’t call the cops.”
I closed the eyes of the corpse in front of me before climbing to my feet. There was blood on my black sweatshirt, but it just looked like any other stain. There was also blood on the sides of my lips and chin that I did my best to clean up. I could feel the magic in the words and spells around me start to disintegrate. Magic, after all, came from the spellcaster rather than the object. Still, I’d fired the gun before killing him, so that meant no one had heard us.
“Uh, are you alone out there, David?” I asked.
“Well, there’s a guy out here really ticked off we don’t have a clean men’s room for him and discussing how we should be running the place, but I told him he could just go across the street to Wendy’s. He’s decided to wait instead because—”
I walked up to the door, opened it, pulled him in by the shirt collar and slammed it behind me before locking it again.
“Huh, the place looks better than I expected. Did you clean this with vampire super speed?” David asked before looking down at the corpse on the ground. “Huh. I didn’t know orcs were real. That is awesome!”
“They’re not and it’s not. I need your help to get rid of this,” I said, trying not to look at my handiwork.
“Isn’t that your job as vampire sheriff?” David asked, nonplussed.
I glared at him. “You actually think I cover up murders as part of my job?”
“Don’t you?” David leaned down and started stealing the man’s jewelry, cellphone, and wallet.
In fact, the rich vampires of the city had an entire service for cleaning up after the murders they deliberately or accidentally committed during their nightly feedings. Appropriately enough, called the Cleaners (with a capital C). They were soulless European dudes led by a little old lady with glasses. They bleached everything, mesmerized or intimidated witnesses, and made sure every corpse was disposed of by ghouls. My second job rarely brought me in touch with them, but I hated whenever it did. I didn’t want them involved in this. I also didn’t have their number and couldn’t afford their rates if I did.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, so we’re drawing the line at robbery but not murder?” David asked.
“Yes! I mean, no! I mean, I did it in self-defense,” I said, looking at him in disgust. “He was here to kill me.”
“Why?” David asked. “You’re kind of unimportant as a vampire. Sheriff or not, you’re really low on the totem pole.”
“I get that David.”
“Like the Oddjob of their SPECTRE. Except you don’t even have a hat to throw.”
“I know that, David.”
“So, why target you?”
“Why does anyone try to kill me lately? Because I’m on their radar,” I said, sighing. A purely symbolic gesture but one that many vampires indulged in. You know, because we didn’t breathe. “You’d think all of the supernaturals in the world coming to this area would make it easier for us to co-exist.”
“Yeah, can’t we all just get along?” David joked.
I stared at him. “Not cool, dude. Not cool at all.”
“Sorry.” David lifted the corpse by its arms. He then started dragging it to the janitor’s closet. “We’ll give this to Steve’s pack to dispose of in their usual way. It’ll cost two hundred bucks, though.”
“Two hundred bucks to cover up a murder, huh,” I said, thinking that was much more reasonable than the Cleaners’ rates. I briefly thought about recommending them to my friends before I realized that was horrifying, disgusting, and wrong.
“In this town, it’s really a bulk business,” David said. “So this guy isn’t an orc?”
“No, he did that to himself,” I said. “I’m pretty sure orcs don’t exist.”
“How about elves?” David asked.
“They do exist,” I said. “But they’re all vain homicidal psychopaths. Don’t ask how I know some.”
David looked at me with the intensity only a lifelong fantasy fan could have when asking about pointy-eared sonsofbitches. “So, they do or do not get along well with vampires? I need to know if I can bone one.”
“You’re a zombie now so no.”
David threw his hands and face up into the air to curse God and the universe. “Khaaaaan!”
“Thank you for helping me with this,” I said, shaking my head.
“I thought you’d be used to this by now. This guy at least had it coming, right?”
“I really hope there’s no day I ever become completely comfortable with killing and disposing of bodies,” I said, shaking my head. “I had enough of it in Iraq.”
I’d gone from fighting terrorists to fighting things that went bump in the night in my hometown, only for even less pay and respect. The Middle East had gotten worse since the Reveal. It turned out proof of the supernatural and God’s wrath didn’t cause men to become more peaceful, only increased the arguments over who deserved to get blown up more. A shame because I’d met some solid people overseas. I felt bad the USA had abandoned them in the wake of the supernaturals showing themselves. Mind you, I didn’t get any benefits as a technically dead but also technically alive citizen. Thank you, Uncle Sam.
“Is having enough of violence why you carry a gun now?” David chided, putting up the body in the storage closet and locking it with his spare key. “You didn’t used to be this cagey. We went years without killing people. Now you’re coming home with spilled blood, which I know you never do while feeding, three times a week.”
“Listen, the gun came in handy tonight. That’s all that needs to be said.” I wasn’t about to argue with him about what was necessary violence. Being the bellidix was my way back into vampire society. The work was meaningful, if not exactly moral. I’d have quit the Qwik and Shop to become bellidix full time if the latter paid anything. Maybe I needed to start shaking people down. Why should I be the only non-corrupt vampire in New Detroit?
That was when a fat middle-aged white man popped his head in through the door. Apparently, the lock needed replacing again. “Is the bathroom clean yet? Some of us need to go, and I don’t want to walk across the street.”
I raised up my hands and stared into his eyes. I tried to influence his mind and draw on the power of mesmerism. Unfortunately, I hadn’t developed that power but kept hoping it would appear any day now. “You can go fuck yourself.”
The man stared at me. “That’s just rude man.”
He then shut the door in my face.
“How would that have even worked?” David said, glancing over at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno. I guess he would go and masturbate? I never really gave any thought to it.”
“So, no hypnotism yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not yet.”
“Anything else cool?”
“I can shapeshift now.”
“What, really? Can you become a bat?”
“No. Listen, shape-changing is overrated. It’s painful as fuck, destroys your clothes, and leaves you surrounded by strange new senses as well as instincts to do crap you don’t want to do.”
“Like what?” David’s eyes were as wide as dish plates. Like all Bloodslaves, he’d wanted to become a vampire. Despite claiming he was okay with it, I was of the mind he was less than satisfied being a zombie.
“Like chase cars, smell people’s crotches, and other crap I didn’t want to talk about.”
“Wait, you become a dog?” David said.
“Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“It’s at least a big black dog, right?”
“Yes, it’s a big black dog.” Under no circumstances was I going to tell David I became an adorable black and white corgi. I’d have to kill him.
“That’s cool, right?” David suggested, picking up on my not-so-subtle hint that my new powers were not all they were cracked up to be. “I mean, you’re growing stronger. Less Buffy the Vampire Slayer vampire and more Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
I wasn’t so sure. It seemed like every time I developed a new power, it always came with some significant strings attached or was downright useless in everyday life. I could talk to the animals like Doctor Doolittle, grow claws, turn into a dog, and kick a little more ass than in life but it wasn’t anywhere near what I’d hoped to get when I was made. Really, my most powerful ability was time-manipulation, and that meant I could fast forward and rewind my perceptions. Great for slowing down people trying to kick my ass and looking at things in the past but my control over it was shit.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” I said, right before my cell phone rang. Which was strange because, as I’d checked earlier, it was dead. That meant it was some magic B.S. and whenever magic B.S. was involved, my creator was not far behind. So, I picked it up, “Hello, Dave’s House of Taxidermy. We do animals, fish, and shifters. Oh wait, no, we’re not supposed to mention the last one.”
David looked at me strangely. “What the?”
I covered the phone receiver and said, “No one ever calls me who I actually want to talk to!”
“I know it’s you, Peter,” Thoth’s voice said on the other end of the cellphone. Proving my instincts about it being magic B.S. were correct. The fact he’d renamed himself after the Egyptian god of knowledge said just about everything you needed to know about him. Well, that and if you added he had his own honest-to-God sex cult and a half-a-billion dollars.
“No hablo ingles,” I said, in a terrible Mexican accent. “The earlier message was by my partner and I only speak enough to say I don’t speak it. Dammit.”
Okay, that was not my finest performance.
“Wow,” David said. “Even I feel offended by that and I’m Jewish.”
“I have a job for you.”
“Kinda busy here, Thoth.”
“I don’t care.” I could feel Thoth’s irritation through the phone. I wasn’t being metaphorical either since we shared a psychic connection as creator and scion.
“Right, how high this time.” I muttered.
Thoth, a two-hundred-year-old vampire, had been created in the chaos of the 1791 Haiti Slave Revolt. His creator, Doubye, was an asshole even among a race of assholes and forced him to kill his family among other atrocities. Thoth eventually killed him, a secret that could get him killed even today, and became one of the most influential vampires in the New World. I owed Thoth a lot but he often zig-zagged between a helicopter parent and a guy who didn’t know me from Dracula. I think it was hard for him to sympathize with my monetary issues when he’d been born in chains.
“This is serious, Peter,” Thoth said.
“Fine,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose and steeling myself for whatever demeaning task my creator wanted of me. “What asshole has screwed up this time? Did a guy go threatening to eat some tourist’s children? You know the Network’s cronies love doing that shit.”
The Network was the informal labor union slash resistance movement for the Youngbloods and less potent supernaturals. Tens of thousands of people had been turned into vampires by their loved ones with the Reveal. They’d been less than happy to find out it meant they were expected to obey the Old Ones and the Council of Ancients in all things. They’d made a couple of revolts over the years only for the big guys to come down hard. Despite being only five years dead myself, I kind of sympathized with the Old Ones. Vampires didn’t need a hug and acceptance, we needed to be watched like foxes around the henhouse. The hens being poor unsuspecting dumbass humanity.
“No, it’s not the Network.”
“Then it can wait,” I said, looking down at the corpse on the ground. “At least for a couple of hours.”
“You’ll be paid for this mission,” Thoth interrupted. “Well.”
“Okay, how can I help?” I said, quickly changing my tune. “Also, how much?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars for a short time’s work.”
I blinked, surprised at the offer. That kind of money would go a long way to making sure my mother remained in relative comfort. “I would be incredibly grateful if I didn’t know that’s probably what you spend on your suits.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I spend much more than twenty-five thousand dollars on my suits.”
I both loved and hated my mentor. He was like the rich tightwad dad that every poor kid from Detroit dreamed of resenting.
I both loved and hated my mentor some days. “Okay, what’s the job?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here. This one is both time-sensitive and important.”
“Aren’t they all?” I asked.
“Is something wrong?” Thoth asked.
“You mean aside from being saddled with a soul-crushing job that pays zilch? One that has almost gotten me fired from a paying job that most humans won’t take but is all I can manage?” It was hard being dishonest around Thoth. He had that surrogate dad thing about him and the power to control me with his voice. It was a bad combination. “A job that requires me to kill people for the undead on the off chance that I’m making the world a better place for humans by keeping the worst of us under control? Yet, maybe, the worst ones are the people that give me orders?”
“Yes, aside from that,” Thoth said, without skipping a beat.
I frowned. “I killed a guy in the bathroom a few minutes ago. He was trying to kill and eat me, but I feel bad about it.”
“Ah,” Thoth said. “Feel any guilt?”
“Uh, not really. The guy was an idiot,” I said. “I think someone is trying to kill me, though.”
“Yes, that’s a danger of the job,” Thoth said. “People who want to protest the Vampire Nation tend to target those who enforce its dictates.”
“And I’m not paid for it,” I said, feeling this was something that needed to be mentioned repeatedly. “I’m just saying the bellidix job should come with a five-figure salary. Five figures that aren’t zeroes.”
“You’re paid in prestige,” Thoth said.
“Whoop de fucking do,” I said.
David snorted behind me.
“Any other complaints?” Thoth asked.
I thought back about it. “No, I’ve killed like ten other guys this year, but they all had it coming. Especially that one Bloodslave who ran a dogfighting ring. Fuck people who abuse animals. I say that not just because I can talk to them but because I can become one.”
“So you just want more money.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because ‘money isn’t everything’ is something said by rich people.”
Thoth surprised me. “I’ll make your fee fifty thousand if you can get here in an hour. New Detroit Airport. Terminal 7B.”
I blinked. “What is this about? Is it the apocalypse?”
“Worse,” Thoth said, sounding like he was speaking through clenched fangs. “Rebecca Plum.”
“Wait, the crappy vampire romance novelist?”
“Just get here.” Thoth hung up.
Vampire fiction tended to go in cycles, even before vampires were a real thing. Every ten years or so, someone would come out with a successful vampire novel that was hotter and sexier than the previous version but still tame. People would bitch and moan about it, talk about how vampires were ruined forever, and then eventually forget about it. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, Charlaine Harris, and now Rebecca Plum.
Rebecca Plum was different than the other vampire romance novelists, though, in the fact she was a direct employee of the Vampire Nation. She’d written about sixty vampire novels with the help of her ghost writers and gotten about twenty movies made in a frighteningly short amount of time. Some of them were allegedly based on true stories. All of them made us seem slightly less threatening than a Care Bear with fangs (thank you, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Every vampire I knew hated her work with a fury only someone accustomed to being taken seriously could. The books had a magnetic effect on the public, though, and were perfect propaganda for convincing middle-aged women and their daughters to vote against laws that would put us all in camps. I wasn’t fond of her crappy prose but was glad it was effective.
“Rebecca Plum?” David asked, blinking. “That is awesome! Can I come?”
“No!” I snapped.
“Why?” David asked, looking confused.
“No,” I answered flatly. I didn’t want David going Lady Gaga over the author lady. Not when there was this much money to be made. “Listen, David, I got to get going. You need to dispose of the body and cover my shift.”
“Why should I do that?” David asked, crossing his arms. “I mean, if we get her to sign even a napkin, I could sell that on eBay for more than your car is worth.”
“That’s not saying much,” I said. “Besides, you’re my friend and I need you to do this.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“And I’ll pay you,” I said. “Four hundred bucks.”
David smirked. “Awesome. I’ll see to it.”
I opened the bathroom door where there were about a half-dozen customers waiting outside to come in despite the fact there was an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the door. Seriously, was Wendy’s that horrible? I mean, I was always a Burger King fan, but it seemed like an excessive reaction.
Steve was behind the counter, tying a rubber tube around his arm. He was apparently going to shoot up behind the counter. “Wow, way to not give a shit.”
“Did you clean up all the crap in the bathroom?” Steve said, tapping his vein while two nearby customers looked uncomfortable.
“I can assure you there’s no crap in the bathroom,” I said, walking past the counter. “Off to do something secret and spooky.”
“Right,” Steve said, not paying the slightest bit of attention as I left. “Remember to get me that autograph.”
“No!” I shouted back.
The sensible thing would have been just to take my car and drive to the airport at the speed limit. I would have gotten there roughly around the time I needed to, give or take a few minutes, but I was feeling pumped at the prospect of getting ahead of my financial problems and all the debt I’d been dealing with these past four years. I decided to fly there. To use my most awesome, terrifying, and spectacular new power. Not to turn into a bat but to be like Superman and lift myself into the air before firing off like a rocket. I’d done it only a few times, but each experience could only be described as pure awesome.
Kneeling on one knee, I gathered up all my strength as a vampire and prepared to fly into the air. That was a power I possessed and was fully in control of (even if I wasn’t quite a master of its use). Staring upward into the smog-filled space above me, I leapt into the sky.
And accidentally smashed into the Qwik and Shop sign.