Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales (19 page)

I stared at the creatures, at the farm, at the surrounding countryside. Beautiful, idyllic. Who would have thought a vampire lived there?

“Is this part of your sales pitch?” I asked.

“Indeed. I feel it’s important for you to know that I practice safe bloodletting. That was a small joke.”

I chuckled and handed back the phone before I inadvertently scrolled across a vampire selfie. Then again, there wouldn’t be much to see anyway.

“What happens next in the dreams?” I asked.

“The train will arrive any minute now. There will be a man who will step on board with a concealed crossbow under his trench coat. In one outcome, he shoots me calmly through the heart with a silver bolt. His aim is true, and I die within seconds.”

“And in the other outcome?”

The vampire did not hesitate when he said, “You shoot him between the eyes.”

We were alone in the cafe coach. I checked the time. Four minutes to touch down.

It occurred to me that the vampire’s gaze hadn’t left me for most of the train ride. It also occurred to me that I hadn’t felt uncomfortable under his gaze. Never had anyone stared at me for so long. Then again, rarely had I been the object of a bloodsucker’s attention for so long.

Professor Harry Artemis was a highly valued professor who published often in peer-reviewed journals and taught night classes. He didn’t kill or hurt humans. Or so he said. He drank only animal blood harvested on his own farm. Or so he said. The farm was a fact. It had come up during my initial research. I had even seen a Google map of the farm.

“Is it in your nature to kill?” I asked.

“I believe it is. I believe there is something inside me that very much wants to kill. But I have never given into it. Never entertained it, and I mostly keep the thing within me at bay.”

“You say
mostly
.”

“It seems to surface only when I slaughter one of my farm animals. That seems to appease the thing inside for a short while.”

“Are you afraid that you will lose control of that… thing?”

His stare never wavered, nor did I expect it to. “There is a part of me that fears that if I let that thing out, I might not ever recover myself again. And so, I don’t let it out. Ever.”

“What is it, if I may ask?”

“I suspect—and I am no expert—but I suspect it is the thing that makes me what I am.”

“A vampire?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Two minutes,” I said.

“And counting,” said the vampire. “I note you did not ask me how I became a vampire.”

“That seems kinda personal.”

He threw back his head and laughed. A rich, vibrant sound. “In case you are wondering, I was attacked while jogging in Long Beach. I was left for dead, and awoke in a hospital a changed man. I do not know why I was turned or who turned me, but ever since, my life has not been the same.”

“That seems like an understatement.”

“If ever there was.”

I nodded and looked at my watch.

Under one minute.

“You feel him, don’t you?” asked the vampire.

The train was slowing. The brightly lit station was coming into my peripheral view. I continued looking at the vampire.

“The hunter?” I asked.

He shook his head once. “Your son.”

I didn’t speak or blink. I stared and finally swallowed, and then, I nodded. And kept on nodding.

“It is him, Mr. Spinoza. He has been by your side during this entire trip.”

“You see him?”

“I do. He is vibrant and healthy and full of life, and he loves his father.”

“Jesus,” I said, and turned my face away.

The doors hissed open.

I didn’t move. Neither did the vampire. He kept his eyes on me. I kept mine on the mirror above him, which reflected the exit behind me, through which I could see commuters coming and going, lugging suitcases and backpacks and laptop cases. My heart was beating faster than I liked. Adrenaline pumping. Ready for action, if necessary.

I felt a prickle on my arm. A familiar prickle. A loving prickle.

I looked at the vampire. He looked at me, and nodded once.

I hadn’t killed a man in a long time; in fact, my last kill hadn’t been a human. It had been a vampire.

Professor Artemis went on staring at me. He kept his hands flat on the table, his chest exposed. An easy target for someone who knew his way around a crossbow.

Jesus, do they still make those things?

I blinked, and that was all it took. When I refocused, a man was standing in the mirror, a big man with long black hair and a flowing trench coat. I gasped and looked down at the vampire, and saw, for the first time, that his eyes were closed. I also noticed, somehow, that his chest wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing, or maybe he was holding his breath. Had he been breathing all along, and I hadn’t noticed?

When I looked up again at the mirror, the hunter was removing an honest-to-God crossbow from inside his coat. Behind him, commuters were coming and going. But not coming and going into the cafe coach. We were, for the most part, alone.

He raised the weapon.

My motion was a smooth one; maybe I had been a gunslinger in a past life. One moment, I was sitting with my back to the man, and the next, I was turning with my weapon in my hand.

I fired a single shot, and the shot was true.

A bloody rose blossomed in the man’s wide forehead, and he pitched forward into the cafe coach—that’s when all the screaming started.

When I breathed again and turned back around, the vampire was gone.

I was with Detective Sherbet of the Fullerton Police Department. We were in his unmarked squad car, parked not very far from the Fullerton station. It was late at night and I was exhausted. Behind us, lights flashed and camera crews and reporters were filming their stories.

“Sounds like you had a rough night,” said Sherbet.

“Not as rough as the other guy.”

“The guy you shot in the forehead.”

“That would be him.”

“The guy sporting the crossbow.”

“One and the same.”

Sherbet was a big man with hairy arms. He smelled good. Like a man. A hint of cologne with a chaser of garlic. His gut was bigger than he’d probably wanted it to be, but it looked firm. It suited him. He and I didn’t go way back, but we had crossed paths. Most recently, at a biker hideout, not far from Palm Springs.

Another story, for another time.

Sherbet looked into his rearview mirror. “It’s not every day that a guy with a crossbow attacks people on a train.”

“I suppose not.”

“With a silver-tipped arrow.”

“I think they’re called bolts, Detective,” I said.

“Arrow, bolt, who gives a fuck. Same damn thing.”

I shrugged and waited. I’d refused to speak to anyone until Sherbet arrived. The responding officers hadn’t liked that a whole helluva lot, but I didn’t care. I trusted Sherbet. Also, I knew he was dealing with his own supernatural elements in his city. I’d read about the flying creature and the drained gang member and the sighting of what some claimed to have been a werewolf.

Crazy shit,
I thought.
Crazy times.

“I can think of only one reason why a man lugs around a crossbow with a silver-tipped bolt.”

“The Renaissance fair is in town?”

Sherbet ignored me. “What do you know about vampires, Spinoza?”

“Enough to know they belong in teen romance novels.”

“Or not. I have someone coming who can explain this for us, and help this mess go away.”

“Go away, how?”

“She has her ways. Oh good. Here she is now. Spinoza, do you know Samantha Moon?”

“I do.” I’d helped her find her runaway daughter a few years ago. We had gotten lucky. After all, sometimes the missing stay missing. I hate when that happens.

Behind me, the rear door opened, and I glanced in the side mirror in time to see a smallish woman slide inside. At least, I assumed it was a woman. After all, whoever had slid in didn’t fully appear in the mirror.

A moment later, Samantha Moon popped her pretty face between the front seats. “I hear you boys have a vampire situation…”