Nocturnal Read online

  Placing his hands palm down on the bed beside him, he pushed his body forward, towards the edge of the bed. His feet landed on the solid wood bead board flooring just as his butt slid off the edge of the mattress. He stood there, dehydrated and wobbly. He held onto the bed for support for a moment, his head swimming, his body listing a bit to the left. He blinked his eyes, pushed the lank, lifeless hair upwards and to the right, off his forehead. He shuffled forward on spindly legs and unbending knees, careening through the dark rooms towards the bathroom.

  He stumbled into the bath, and headed straight to the toilet. He did not bother turning the lights on, since he could see just fine. He lifted the seat and peed, reddish urine, thick and syrupy, dribbling into the bowl. Once done, he put himself back into his underwear, and flushed. He lurched back out.

  He headed into the kitchen, his mind clearing even more. By the time he warmed up some of his refrigerated blood in a coffee mug in his microwave, the vampire figured out what he needed to do.

  It was a huge risk.

  It meant exposing himself, more than he had done in almost a century. He remembered the last time he had revealed the truth of what he was to a human being.

  He grunted at the memory. More of a snort really, without merriment. Things had not gone so well then, had they?

  The vampire sipped the warm blood from the coffee mug. Realizing he was hungrier than he had previously thought, he quickly put the mug back to his lips and tilted back, slamming the remainder of the mug’s contents down his throat. He swallowed with an audible gulp. He turned on the water at the kitchen faucet, rinsed the cup out, filled it with water. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, then drank the water down nearly as fast as he had the blood.

  Feeling satisfied, at least for the moment, the vampire sighed, like a connoisseur who has just imbibed from a very rare vintage wine. He put the mug down on the counter and walked out of the kitchen.

  His senses projected outward. His body operating more efficiently now, he stood in his dark bedroom, considering what to wear. Outside, he heard cars more than a block away as they negotiated Adams Avenue. He heard the footsteps and the heartbeats of the young couple down below, as they walked along the sidewalk, blissfully unaware of the monster nearby.

  He considered applying makeup, decided against it. Subterfuge would be inappropriate. He would rely on the young cop’s innate goodness to not try to kill him. Still, one never knew how people would react in a stressful situation. Where their first, worst nightmares were confirmed, when the things parents always told children were imaginary, were suddenly real and in your face, and people had to face the terrible reality that monsters really do exist.

  The vampire glided over to his closet, pulled the door back. He selected his wardrobe for the evening, black khaki pants, a navy blue cashmere mock turtle, a black London Fog trench coat that hung to his knees, and black loafer shoes.

  He changed into the clothes quickly. He needed to find Reggie, tonight. That would take time. The vampire knew instinctively that time was something Reggie did not have in abundance.

  Once dressed, the vampire walked into his living room. He took a deep breath, slowly and quietly blew it back out. He closed his eyes, calmed himself, and then concentrated, thinking about Reggie. His mind, usually awash with the sights, sounds, and smells of his surroundings and the people in them, began to calm itself. Another deep breath, in and out, and the calm filled with a gentle darkness the vampire always found both compelling, and comforting.

  A few seconds later, it came to him. Not in a blinding flash of light like some kind of dramatic epiphany, but just a steady dawning of awareness. Reggie was alive, and in San Diego. He was in a dark place, no lights, but he was not afraid. He was at peace with his surroundings.

  The vampire realized Reggie was asleep. Gentle, slow breaths, all even, in and out.

  The vampire came out of his trance. There were forces afoot tonight, forces on both sides of the law that wanted Reggie Downing dead. The vampire’s face darkened. In his mind, there was nothing worse than a dirty cop. A traitor to fellow officers, and a betrayer and exploiter of the public trust.

  The vampire remembered his run-ins with law enforcement in his younger days. And he had certainly had his own experiences with dirty cops back in the day, had he not?

  The vampire picked up his thin wraparound sunglasses, put them on as he moved forward. He snatched up his car keys, opened the door just wide enough for him to slither out. And then he was outside.

  The deadbolt slid softly into place with a muted thunk, and then all was dark and quiet.

  Outside on the landing, the vampire turned the collar on his trench coat up, and brought his fingers around towards his chin, making sure the collar popped completely, and stayed in its desired position. It had nothing to do with the dampness or the cold. Out of a heightened sense of self-preservation, honed for over a century, he simply wanted to hide his face as much as possible. And keep what could not be hidden in shadows.

  He moved like a jungle predator, down the Spanish-tiled steps to the ground floor. His Lexus waited in a reserved parking spot in the alley out back. He made his way around the side of the building, enjoying the night. Enjoying the quiet.

  Enjoying the darkness.

  The vampire moved silently as the fog that enshrouded him, impervious to the moisture in the air, the condensation clinging to windshields, metal gates, fences. He paused at the back corner of the building, lifted the latch on the gate, and pushed through. He closed the gate behind him, dropped the latch back in place, and found himself in the alley.

  He heard and felt raindrops right then, at the same time. Great, he thought. Now I’m going to get drenched, and my clothes will be ruined. Oh wait. I’m wearing London Fog. I’ll be all right.

  As he ambled towards his car, he picked up two racing heartbeats, somewhere out in front of him. They were lying in wait, thinking they were concealed. The vampire saw all buildings, cars, shrubs, and garbage dumpsters with his customary clarity. He sensed an evil intent from one. In the other he sensed fear.

  The vampire did not have time for this. Not tonight. And certainly not in the damned rain.

  He continued towards his car, seemingly oblivious. The two people appeared, rising up out of the mists from near a dumpster.

  “Hey, fucker,” one of them called out.

  The vampire stopped on a dime, without turning around. “That’s not nice, you know. To talk like that. He turned slowly. “To speak to another person like that.”

  Two of them, both Hispanic. Wearing gang colors. The vampire sighed. He had noticed the painted gang tags that had been cropping up on street signs around the area lately. It had never been an issue in the past. During the last year or two, however...

  One was a bit older, maybe eighteen, twenty. No more. He was slightly built, with smooth features, but a cruel face. The other was still a child. Maybe thirteen, fourteen tops. His eyes as big as saucers, a mixture of fear and disbelief that he was actually doing something like this.

  Probably his first time committing a crime.

  Welcome to the deep end of the pool, kid.

  They walked up to him, stopped about five feet away. “That your car?”

  “Yes.”

  The kid pulled out a knife, clicked it open. The blade locked into place. “Give me the keys.”

  The vampire pretended to think it over. “No.”

  The kid brandished the knife threateningly. “Motherfucker, I said give me the keys. And while you’re at it, give me all your money, too.”

  “No.”

  “Motherfucker, I’ll cut your ass.”

  The vampire sighed, as if he was infinitely bored. He took off his sunglasses, deposited them into his inside coat pocket. He looked directly at them, no longer smiling, revealing his eyes.

  Then his lips parted.

  Were those really fangs they were seeing?

  The younger one’s jaw dropped. He took a step ba
ck. The older one, clearly scared, would not back down.

  “You sure you want to do this?” the vampire asked, his voice slithering like snakes.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

  The vampire took a step forward, wondered how to answer that question truthfully. “Where do I begin?”

  The teen had expected an easy robbery, followed by an adrenaline high and dropping the car off to a chop shop for an easy two grand. But now, things were going sideways.

  The vampire sincerely hoped they would turn and run. He disliked killing amateurs, people who were not committed to a life of crime. Or those young enough to still have a chance at rehabilitating themselves. If they ran, he could simply let them go. No one would believe the crazy story they would tell. Hell, everyone knew that vampires didn’t exist, right?

  But if this older pendejo decided to stand his ground and fight, it would seal the younger one’s fate as well. If the vampire killed one, then he would be compelled to kill them both. Another essential part of Vampire Survival Strategy: never, under any circumstances, suffer a witness to live who has seen what a vampire can really do.

  “Man. I’ll cut you, man.”

  “No. You won’t.”

  “I’ll fucking stab you in the heart. I’ll fucking kill you.”

  The vampire took another step forward. “No,” he said gently, shaking his head. “You really won’t. Trust me.”

  The vampire simply stood there, waiting. Seconds ticked by. The rain came down a bit harder. He was soaked, his hair plastered to his forehead.

  He sighed. “Face it. You ain’t gonna do anything, and I don’t have time for this.” He turned his back on the kid with the knife, began to walk away.

  “What? Where you going?”

  “Go home, kid,” the vampire threw over his shoulder. “And take the little one with you.”

  Confused by his supposed victim’s lack of fear, the older boy looked like he might start crying. “You can’t do that!” His voice was hoarse. “You can’t just walk away like that!”

  The vampire unlocked his car, opened the door. Raindrops began pelting the fabric of the seat, newly exposed to the elements. “I’m doing it.” He paused, waiting to see if his words would be taken as a taunt, propelling the knife-wielding youth into a stupid course of action.

  “Go home, kid. Take Junior with you.”

  The vampire slid into the driver’s seat, closed the door, flicked the door lock with one finger. He started up the car, turned on the headlights. Rivulets of water obscured and distorted objects outside as he peered through the windshield. He turned his wipers on. They moved smoothly, almost silently, wiping the rain off the glass, clearing his view.

  The two youths still stood there, not moving. The vampire sighed again at their ignorance. He revved his engine. They jumped as if they’d been shot, and they moved off to the side. Inside the Lexus, he shifted the car into gear and tapped the accelerator. The car lurched forward, past the bewildered boys, and down the alley towards the street.

  The older kid, secretly relieved, stared at the car and its receding red taillights. He felt his younger cousin tug on his sleeve.

  “What?”

  “Can we go now?”

  He stared at his cousin in silence, unable to form words.

  “I want to go home, Efren.”

  Efren nodded, trying to act tough in front of his cousin. “Momentito, Hector. Momentito.”

  Efren watched as the taillights glared bright and the collision light lit up, like a firework in the black wet night. The white Lexus stopped at the alley entrance. The yellow blinker went on, indicating a left turn. The car inched forward and turned left, and disappeared from his sight.

  “I wanted to be sure that motherfucker wasn’t coming back.” He folded his knife and put it back into his pocket.

  “He scared me.”

  “He was lucky.” Hector looked up at his cousin questioningly. It was in that time that Efren knew Hector was not cut out for the “gangsta” lifestyle. Maybe Efren really wasn’t, either.

  “Come on. I’ll get you a sandwich on the way home,” Efren said. He patted Hector on the shoulder, and they walked up the alleyway as the rain continued to fall.

  “I’d like a burger better,” Hector said.

  “Okay,” Efren replied. “And on Monday, you’re going to school.”

  Hector looked up at his cousin. “What?”

  “You do it,” Efren ordered, in a voice that Hector knew meant he had no choice in the matter.

  “You should do it, too,” Hector mumbled.

  Efren pretended he was thinking about it for the first time. “Well, maybe I will.”

  Hector’s face lit up with a broad smile. “Really?”

  Efren nodded. “I could sign up for one of those adult courses. Auto mechanics, or something.”

  Hector smiled. Efren grinned back at him.

  Finally.

  Something that would make his mother proud of him again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rain peppered across the windshield as the Lexus approached the ramp for the southbound Interstate 15. Wipers wicked water away in a rhythmic beat, an automotive metronome. More rain pattered across the glass.

  The vampire glanced into his rear view mirror. Rivulets of water cascaded down the back window. Driven by air movement from the car moving at thirty miles per hour, rainwater ran off the roof across the back, and down to the pavement.

  He tapped his brakes at the red light, put on his left blinker. The vampire was a very good driver. He always obeyed the rules of the road, never drove over the speed limit, never rolled through a stop sign.

  But it was more than simply decades of experience and fastidious attention to detail. As with so many other things in his life, he drove so as to not draw attention to himself.

  The light turned green. He accelerated gently and cranked his wheel. The car moved forward in a leftward arc, turning onto the onramp from Adams Avenue to the Interstate. Once in the merging lane, he accelerated more aggressively. He signaled, merged left into rather sparse weekend traffic. Soon he traveled at over seventy miles per hour.

  As he drove, his mind slowed. His body controlled the car, from muscle memory more than anything else. His mind became calm water on a moonlit lake. Shimmering liquid. Tranquil translucence.

  Quiet as the Grave.

  Black as Death.

  Then he pushed. Concentrated. Discarded psychic distractions.

  Zeroed in.

  He felt Reggie’s life force again. Heartbeat and respirations thumped faster before, but the vampire sensed no trauma, no undue stress.

  Reggie was awake now. The longer the vampire maintained his psychic connection, the easier to pinpoint Reggie. Like a bat seeking out both prey and dangers via echolocation.

  The vampire looked in his rear view mirror again, checking traffic behind him. He signaled, merged onto another curved onramp. He merged onto westbound State Highway 94, known as the Martin Luther King highway, or simply the MLK.

  The rain had abated. He turned the wipers off. Ahead, glistening like multicolored jewels, the lights of downtown San Diego sparkled. What locals proudly called “America’s Finest City”.

  Somewhere within that city, a brave, honest cop had been betrayed by one of his own, a fellow policeman sworn to uphold the law. And seriously bad, evil men had marked that honest cop for death. Men with no morals, no respect for the law, no respect for human life, no remorse for the evil they did. No guilt about the lives they destroyed, or the families they devastated.

  Men who showed no mercy.

  Well, the vampire decided, no mercy is what they deserve in return. And no mercy shall they shall receive from me.

  Officer Reginald Downing staggered from the cheap bed. His back torqued in pain. The ancient, seen-better-days, overslept and under stuffed mattress lay atop an exposed box spring that looked like something from the Great Depression. The claustrophobic room boasted a thin li
ne of black mold near the top of the wall along the seam where it met the ceiling.

  The bed, the linens, the walls, the entire room smelled musty.

  Reggie had tried resting at the Boroquez Building. Having grown up watching old horror movies on TV and listening to his Grandma’s and Great Grandma’s ghost and voodoo stories when he was small, isolation and silence always gave him the creeps. The pitch-blackness, the cold sounds, chilly echoes. So he had opted for a cheapie roach motel instead. He did not check out with Coulter or anyone else.

  He just did it.

  Reggie now shuffled to a small wood worn table. He fumbled in the shadows, and finally managed to turn a tiny table lamp on. Yellow light speared through the room, illuminating only part of it, casting shadows, bringing the farther recesses out of blackness and into muddy gloom. He stood back up gingerly, then tentatively arched, stretching his abdominal muscles. It did not hurt as much as he feared.

  Clad only in his underwear, he looked down at himself. He was getting older, sure, but he still had powerful legs, a tight chest, and washboard abs. His shoulders remained broad, heavily muscled, his triceps still well defined. When he made a muscle, his biceps curled up to roughly the size of small cannonballs.

  The tiniest trace of “love handles” were forming at either side of his lower back. It did not show from the front, and his pants size had not increased since he was a teen. All in all, he thought he was doing well for a career cop in his thirties.

  Reggie had bounced from one flop house to another the past two days. Standing still gave your enemy time to catch up. He did not spend the night in the same place twice.

  Tonight would be no different.

  He would grab a shower, put on some clothes, then venture out. His planned to utilize counter surveillance techniques, moving through the city to downtown, and into East Village. Once there he planned to do the last thing anyone would expect him to do.

  Reggie ambled with a stiff gait into the bathroom he had paid extra for. It was worth it. He had also paid extra for the night clerk to not tell anyone he was here. Whether or not that was money well spent, only time would tell. Things were looking good so far.