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He might have been kidding, it was hard to tell when he wore sunglasses, which was all the time.
“Maybe later.”
He grunted again, and I felt less creeped out. He’d reminded me that he had my back. The only danger I was in was from the insect life and my imagination.
Ellinghaus opened the back doors of the ambulance, checked the mini fridge and snagged a plastic sports bottle that would have his preferred beverage in it. I never asked whether it was animal or human blood, as that’s considered to be a social faux pas in the community. If he wanted me to know, he’d say—if he even thought it was important. For instance, he’d never asked whether the sandwiches I stacked next to his blood supply were turkey or ham. What did it matter?
He took a deep swig, gave a long, soft sigh, and I pretended not to hear. That was also something I should be used to by now, but it was less cool than his ability to float around or go invisible at will.
Word had passed down to the bullpen from one of the Company seers that there was to be a return case on this date and at this particular spot in the great state of Texas. That was all she could give, and we’d not gotten a corresponding call from any vamp about registering his or her offspring. Some actively hated the red tape, but their “kids” got registered, like it or not, because they couldn’t hide their rebirth from the seers. I don’t know why some vamps kicked up such a fuss. It’s just paperwork and not like we put microchip trackers under the skin.
At least I don’t think we do.
Most flashes of the future that come to seers are not reliable. It’s to do with theoretical physics and how things are constantly in flux because people are constantly in flux. Michio Kaku’s multiple universe stuff is involved, and it all works to effectively neutralize specific predictability. That’s why you don’t find seers winning the lottery. If they could, they would, but they can’t, so they work, same as anyone else. Some still buy tickets, you never know.
Prediction rules are different for the undead, though. Their passing and return somehow creates a short-term stability point for seers to pick up on with—what else—uncanny accuracy. That’s their story, and they’ve stuck to it for centuries. It’s easier to call it magic than to try explaining the equations to a liberal arts student who flunked algebra. (I’d not lost sleep over that one, having had no use for the subject. We can’t all be academically well-rounded.)
Anyway, when the word came, my gut gave a strange flutter, and I said I’d take the job. I don’t have psychic gifts in league with seers, but I never ignore that feeling. I wanted to tackle this one even if I didn’t consciously know why.
Five hours later I was in the ambulance the Company assigned permanently to Ellinghaus, who was on duty that week. The big Type III was his traveling home, and I tried to take it easy for the last mile as we lurched over a bad road, heading for, not unexpectedly, a cemetery next to the remains of a wood-frame church. I pulled up a few yards away, set the brake, and got out. There was an hour of sunlight left. Ellinghaus was still dead—I refused to think about it—leaving me on my own, so I made the most of it.
It didn’t take more than a minute to find the fresh grave. No effort had been made to tamp down the soil or conceal it, but why bother? No one had been out here for years. I wouldn’t put it past the maker vamp to have picked this isolated spot for no other reason than knowing it would inconvenience a Company employee.
I got my spell stuff together, nothing much, just sea salt in a five-pound container with a handle and perforations on the lid to make it into a giant shaker. Next, a small ice chest containing cold packs and a sports-drink bottle full of fresh bovine blood, then a change of clothes for whoever had been buried. Not knowing the sex wasn’t a problem, everyone started out with gender-neutral gray sweats. I opted for extra large and put them and some hospital scuffs neatly on the ice chest next to the grave.
Then it was time to focus and chant, pacing around the site, sprinkling the salt as I went. Three circuits did the trick; gotta love those prime numbers.
Vamps, being supernaturals, are subject to magical influences to a degree not shared by ordinary day-walking humans. For instance, if I put a holding circle around a regular person, he’d walk right through and not know it was there. But a vampire is held fast, unable to leave until I take it down. It’s a necessary precaution; most new vamps don’t wake up well and need a short adjustment period to get themselves together.
Ellinghaus, finished with his breakfast or whatever he called it, put the bottle back in the fridge, then rummaged in a vertical storage locker where he kept a number of weapons behind a trick panel. He had the usual peacekeepers that vamps respect: stakes, fully charged Tasers, police-grade stun guns, a hickory baseball bat (no shape-shifting jokes, please), and several types of firearms—including a real machine gun from the 1920s—all with special ammo made from wood, silver, and garlic-smeared lead. One pistol fired tranq darts with enough drugs to stun a charging rhino. Two shots worked for most.
My favorite, because it wasn’t lethal to humans, meaning I could use it without damaging myself, was a custom-made toxic green plastic pistol that could shoot holy water twenty feet. Some of the really rare Euro-breeds and a few old-school Dracs reacted to a squirt of that as though it were acid. Other breeds were immune, and the Company geeks were still trying to figure out why. For some reason, volunteers for experimentation were hard to find.
The Company prefers to avoid violence, of course, but if things went very wrong, then Ellinghaus had to be prepared to deal with an organic killing machine every bit as fast, strong, and deadly as himself. He liked having the advantage several times over.
Not all newborn vamps want to stick around to answer questions, even if their mentors insist; they want to cut loose and see if the hype’s true about their condition. (It is.) But there are rules to follow when you wake to the big change.
The number one rule for all of us: stay off the human radar.
It is inviolable.
If one gets noticed, we all get noticed. So don’t get noticed.
That’s hard to remember when you’re anxious to prove that you are the coolest apex predator on two legs.
But really, it’s just not allowed. Break the rule, and you will be staked.
The greater supernatural community has a zero-tolerance policy for grandstanding idiots. Ellinghaus was in charge of making sure the newbies knew there was policing and strict enforcement.
Of course, there are plenty who attempt to challenge that. The sense of entitlement some of the Dracs and Euro-breeds have is almost childish, but they get nobbled. It’s that or be killed.
The nobbling is magical, of course, buried in the registration process and quite painless.
The rule’s been around (more or less) since Polidori blew the whistle on Lord Ruthven. Back then, if a vamp made a village too hot to plunder, he just hopped a horse or flew his shape-shifted batty ass twenty miles over to find some other place to misbehave.
No more. The bad old days of rocking mayhem without consequences are gone. Since the
Industrial Revolution, the whole subculture’s gone conservative to survive.
