AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All I really knew of Thea was that she had perfected numerous spells, had a collection of enchanted baubles, and mainly specialized in an ability to magically manipulate light. Funny, that, how the two of us ended up working together, one walking in darkness, the other, a master of illumination.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised, then, when a segment of the darkness above me brightened. A light, somewhere in the clouds. I gawped, almost forgetting that I was squirming under the hands of an undead thing that wanted me for a midnight snack. The shaft of light in the night sky grew brighter – yellower than the stars, and more luminescent, somehow – until I saw it for what it was. A pillar of brilliance, piercing the veil of dark, rocketing towards the earth from out of the atmosphere.
I wasn’t sure how Thea did it, or how she knew my exact position, but the light must have reflected in my eyes because the vampire tilted his head curiously at my expression. Then he turned his face. The beam of light seemed almost solid against the velvet dark of midnight, and as it struck home it shone brightly against my skin, a puddle of warmth, familiar and comforting. I recognized it for what it was – sunlight. But the vampire was in the way –
And how he screamed.
I had never heard a man howl quite as hideously as the vampire did that night, and I don’t ever want to hear anything like it again. The sunbeam was nothing more than a ray of warmth as it graced the earth, but against the vampire’s face it might as well have been a flamethrower. I could smell his flesh as it sizzled and cooked under the light’s touch, his cheek charred to cinders, his hair incinerating wherever the pillar made contact.
He shrieked in pain, the bone showing through what flesh had been flayed from his skull, and the screaming didn’t stop when he covered his face with his hands. Within seconds the flesh had been burned from them, too, leaving ragged hanks of torn skin and skeletal fingers. I gagged, choking on the smell of cooked undead flesh, of burned hair. He rolled off me, crawling for shade and shelter, but the pillar of sun followed him like a searchlight. Thea wasn’t fuc
king around.
The vampire rolled on the ground, shielding his face with the sleeve of his leather jacket – finally, some reprieve. I was starting to feel bad for him, almost, this thing that was so intent on taking my blood. Gil looked at me menacingly, then warily up at the pillar of light, then at his comrade lolling about on the ground. He shook his head and cursed under his breath, his decision made, and he enveloped the vampire with his body, guarding him from the sunbeam.
“I told you,” he said, scolding the vampire, “but did you listen? Do you ever listen?”
“Fuck off,” the vampire cried, half-whimpering, half-screaming. His voice was different now, issuing from his blistered mouth.
I took my chance to run. Gil was the slower of the two, and whatever he was, he didn’t have the insane acrobatics that the vampire could resort to, so I went on foot as far as I dared, hitting the edge of Heinsite Park before, for good measure, stepping into the shadows and shunting my way across the street. When I was far enough that I couldn’t hear the vampire wailing, far enough that I knew it was safe to sit and breathe, I took some time under the shadows of an office building.
It was a little trick I picked up some time back: by standing perfectly still in the darkness, I could sometimes almost pass myself off as invisible, as if a portion of me receded into the Dark Room. That wouldn’t have helped against the vampire, of course, since I was sure he could have still smelled me or sensed my body heat.
After catching my breath, I turned my attention to a new, unpleasant task: reporting in to Thea. I bit my lip as I raised two fingers to my necklace. Even before making contact I already knew she was going to be unhappy. Kind of an understatement.
“Fine mess you got yourself into,” Thea said. “A damn, fine mess.”
I hugged my knees. “Sorry. And thanks for saving me. And sorry again.”
“You’re lucky everything came flooding in when you called. A vampire. A vampire, Dustin!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
I didn’t think to, or maybe there was that certain fear of being yelled at by an authority figure, which, in retrospect, would still have been leagues better than being kidnapped by Sir Pervert von Vampire and his hairy companion.
“I don’t know,” was all I said.
“I told you about going around alone at night, didn’t I?”
I sighed. Thea clearly wasn’t going to let up on this one. “I was starving. I just went for a burger. That’s all.”
She scoffed. “We can’t have you roaming on your own from now on. I’m not taking any more risks with you.”
“Wait, what?” Dread crept up my spine, or maybe it was the coldness of the brick against my back, but I knew that whatever was coming next wasn’t going to make me happy. “What do you mean?”
“It isn’t safe for you to stay alone in your apartment anymore. I need you to pack your things.”
“Wait.” I blinked. “Am I moving in with you?”
Telepathically, Thea guffawed. “Try again.”
I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water all over me. “You’re not asking me to move into HQ, are you?” The line was silent. “Hello? Thea?”
She didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but I swear I felt her smiling.
Chapter 9
