Page 8 of Nosfer-Meet You

I nod and grab onto the ladder to pull myself up behind her. “Yeah. Juli. That’s what I’m calling you. You can call me Scott or Scotty, whatever you prefer. Or dumbass. That works, too, and I respond to it.”

Juliette lets out another strangled sound, and it’s then that I realize she’s flustered. I made this big, bad Nosferatu flustered. Pride swells in my chest. I did that. Me. And here my mom said I’d never be popular with the ladies. Take that, Mom! You were wrong twice in one day!

A few moments pass, and Juli doesn’t move. It’s like she’s frozen in place.

I pat her heel. “Juli. Juli? You okay up there? Are we going, or…?”

Juliette flinches and looks straight up toward the manhole cover. “Y-Yes. Sorry.”

We continue our way up the ladder and crawl out like a couple of Ninja Turtles, and I quickly look around to make sure the coast is clear. We’re in the middle of a dead-ass street in front of a few Chinese restaurants. Not a soul in sight. Good.

I rub the back of my head and say, “Okay, I’ll be Michelangelo and you can be…” I look Juliette up and down. She stares at me blankly. “Yeah, I think you’re more of a Donatello or a Raphael. I mean, I could totally see you as a Raphael, but you don’t really snark at me so much as just … loom menacingly.” I snap my fingers and point at her. This earns me a deep frown from her. “Fuck it, you’re right. You’re definitely more of a Master Splinter type.”

Juliette puts a hand on her hip and rolls her eyes. “What are you talking about? You’re so stupid, you know that, right?”

I frown when I realize this poor girl’s never seen the Ninja Turtles before. Oh, crap. Has she even seen television before? Considering she skulks about wearing a ginormous hoodie, riding boots, and lives in the sewers, I’m going to guess … no. Probably not.

That won’t do. I know a lot of vampires prefer to live in the past, usually around the time they were turned. Our kind has trouble moving forward. It’s as though our first deaths are a fixed point in time and every moment after doesn’t count.

Screw that noise. I’m going to live, dammit.

As we make our way down the street, I slide my hands into my pockets and skip alongside her like a puppy. “Soooo … you wanna catch a movie after this little excursion of ours?”

No answer. She stares straight ahead, then sniffs the air. I stop and do the same. Yeah, no. I don’t know why I did that. That was totally pointless.

“What is it, girl? Did Timmy fall in the well again?” I tease, but Juliette gives me one of her signature glares. Okay, yeah, she doesn’t understand pop culture references, so I don’t know why I keep trying. That one was positively ancient, too, at least seventy years old. I figured she’d at least know that one. “No, but seriously. What’s wrong?”

“They’re close,” she mutters, then takes a sharp turn around the corner of a boarded-up restaurant. I follow behind her, trying my best to slink away with her as she sticks close to the shadows. Luckily, my leather jacket obfuscates me well enough anyway, so I don’t need to worry about standing out. Some vamps actually wear Day-Glo when they go out—a decision I’ll never understand, because it’s ugly as sin even under the best conditions. The stereotype that vampires are terrible dressers is spot on most of the time.

We stop abruptly behind a truck parked next to a couple of trash cans. A fuzzy raccoon pops its cute little head out of the trash, clutching a half-eaten loaf of bread in its paws.

“Aww,” I say, and crouch down in front of the critter. “Juli, we can’t eat him. He’s just a little guy.”

Juli whirls around and presses her finger to her lips. “Shh! Be quiet for once, you … you andouille!”

I blink. “Andouille? Why are you calling me a sausage?”

There’s a loud bang! bang! bang! not too far from us, and we both jerk our heads up. Juliette shuffles over to one side of the truck to look around it, and I rush forward to put my arm around her like a shield.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice muffled against my jacket.

“I’m protecting you, of course. Isn’t it obvious?”

She pushes me away and grumbles. If this woman could be any animal in the world, she’d definitely be a cat. “Well, stop it. This is why I wanted to leave you behind. You’re only getting in my way.”

I’m pretty sure that’s the longest sentence she’s said to me since we met, and it was to tell me I was in her way. Go figure. She pushes me away with strength I didn’t know she even had, and I fall back onto my ass, spraining my tailbone. Okay, not really, but it sure felt like I did. Juliette goes back to perch behind the truck like Batman while I decide to be a good boy for two seconds and hobble next to her and wait for her signal.

“There are three Helsings standing guard by that door,” she whispers. “I can take care of the two of them easily. But I will need to lure the third away to kill him separately. You wait here, and do not get involved. Do you understand me?” She turns to look at me, and I feel something inside wither up and die. Her eyes turn molten, ready to incinerate my ass should I step a toe out of line.

I gulp. “I-If there are Helsings here, maybe we shouldn’t be? You know, because they have crossbows,” I say, and rub the back of my neck again.

Juli rolls her eyes. “Merde, what a coward. It is fine. I do this every night.”

I heard a rumor once that the Helsings were constantly recruiting because their soldiers kept dying, and no one knew who or what the cause was. Most vamps I know can’t take on one, let alone three of them at a time. But if the legends about the Nosferatu are true, then…

“Stay. Put,” she says, pointing at the ground. “Here. I will return for you.”

Juliette pulls her hood down and races off into the darkness, leaving me behind. She’s so quick I almost don’t notice she’s gone until I open my mouth to reply. Now it all makes sense, how she’s lived for so long by herself. Juliette is like darkness itself, blending into the shadows without a sound.