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On The Hunt

For Red Bordeaux

By Starla BronsonPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Believe it or not, vampire hunting is still a profession in the year 2021. You may be thinking, “Vampire hunting? I’ve never even seen a vampire.” To that, I would say “You’re welcome.”

Snark aside, the profession has changed quite a bit in the past twenty years. In the biz, we refer to this new era as Post-Buff, Pre-Buff being essentially anything between the late nineties and 3000 BCE. We don’t slay anymore. That’s not the goal anyway. If a vampire crosses a line set by their elders, we get sent out like process servers to deliver their papers of summons, to let their community handle the punishments. It’s a lot safer for everyone involved, sure, but it presents a new set of challenges.

I rang the buzzer on 203 Sanders Lane for a solid fifteen minutes before I accepted that no one was coming to the door. Vampires sleep during the day, so in theory, the middle of the day is the best time to catch one. Imagine being an immortal, all-powerful demon of the night, and also being bothered with answering the door for some girl on a bike.

“Alright, Sam,” I said to myself, stroking my chin. “What would Pre-Buff me do?” I was five years old at the turn of the millennia; I had no idea what I would have done back then. I was just performing for the audience of critics in my head. The townhouse was an old structure, one with a lot of hand and footholds on the sides. I propped up my bike on its kickstand, locked up my crossbow on it (a Browning Zero 7 Model 161 if you’re a person of culture like me), and threw myself up the wall on the alley side.

I peered through the window on what I assumed was the master bedroom side. The blinds were closed, of course. This was a vampire lair after all. However, the window was unlocked. I thought about being a decent human, but I reminded myself that the man beyond this window drank the blood of the innocent night by night. I opened the window and rolled inside into a dark, tight room. A bathroom. I hit my forehead on the corner of a counter. “Shoot,” I said. I had a superstition about cursing while on a job. I felt like it weakened the power of my crucifixes.

Someone groaned from beyond the doorway. I took out my papers and cleared my throat as I passed through the door. “Leave this place,” a dark voice demanded. The floorboards rumbled beneath my feet. “Before I get annoyed.”

“The Council of Shades has summoned your presence,” I said, peering around the corner to find the voice. The room was empty save for an empty coffin in the middle. It appeared to be big enough for at least three people— I stopped my mind from putting any more thought into those implications.

“And you decided to come in through my window because...?”

“You didn’t come to the door,” I said. His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, like he had a PA system built into his walls.

“I’m a vampire. The sun will destroy me in seconds,” he said. “Why didn’t you just use the mail slot?”

“I get paid to give you the papers personally,” I said, making my way into the hall. I hit my shin on a stack of empty milk crates. “Shhhucks!” He chuckled. “Why is it so dark in here?”

“I literally just said—”

“Right, right, got it,” I said. “Where are you, so I can give you these papers?”

“Just set them on those crates before you hurt yourself,” he said. “Before you hurt yourself even more, I guess.” I stuck my tongue out to my phantom as I laid the papers down. I felt a breeze blow past me for a moment. My ponytail switched shoulders, and when I looked down, the papers were gone. Chills bloomed across my arms and neck as I backed against the wall.

“You’ve been served,” I said.

“Appreciated. Now get out,” he demanded. His voice had congealed, focused now in the room I had just left. The door slammed closed before I could get a look. At the same time, the front door opened below, sunlight flooding in from the bottom of the stairwell. With one last glance back at the door, I fled back into the sun like it were the arms of an old friend.

“This is you, right? I’m pretty sure this is you,” Joey asked, pointing at his computer screen. He was on a Missed Connections page again.

Brown hair with a crossbow...

“Other people have crossbows,” I said, blushing. My hair was, in fact, very brown. He clicked on the ad.

I couldn’t get the best look at you because it was dark. Would love to see you again, maybe?

“...Yeah, this is me,” I said. Joey nudged me with his elbow.

“Well, look at you,” he said. “You gonna respond or what?”

“This is the vampire,” I said. His nostrils flared at the word. Joey, my very gay best friend, was also a werewolf, and just the mention of the word vampire sent his hackles up as it were.

“What a creep,” he said, backing out of the ad. “Ugh, that was so smooth back when I didn’t have the full context. Now it’s ruined.”

“I mean... It’s still kind of smooth,” I said.

“Gross,” he said. As subtly as I could (if you’re this far into the story, you probably know how unsubtle I am), I took out my phone and tried to find the link. “Are you kidding me? Do you want to die?”

“I just want to hear what he has to say,” I said back. “Can I live, Joey?”

“And when you end up on the news, everyone is gonna look at me like ‘Why didn’t you stop her?’”

“Anyone who knows me well knows that I can’t be stopped,” I said, as I sent him a message.

Next thing I knew, I was looking through my closet for my little black dress only to remember that I didn’t have one anymore. It got ruined in a fight with a class-B poltergeist. The dry cleaners didn’t even want to touch it. I had a slightly-less-little navy blue dress to substitute, however. It was off the shoulders, and as I looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed more than I ever had before just how many of my veins were visible from my jaw down to my shoulders. I threw on a white cardigan that didn’t really match, but it did make me feel half a centimeter safer.

His name was August, and he had me meet him at night at a fancy restaurant uptown. He said that he would be holding a single, red rose at the bar. I always wondered if two or more guys happened to be in the same restaurant at the same time, holding the same flower, did guy code have protocols for how to handle that?

It took me a bit to get there. I was delayed about thirty minutes because of the famously reliable public transportation system of America. I rushed up to the door and stopped. There was a man collecting coats, and I was stunned. I had absolutely no business at a place this nice. I clutched my clutch a bit tighter, as I tried to squint through the darkened windows at people’s plates. No one had a mountain of cheesy fries or a half pitcher of some bright blue cocktail slushie. The porter cleared his throat.

“May I help you, ma’am?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” I said, shocked out of my paralysis. Out of panic, I took off my cardigan and handed it to him. He offered me a hard blink as I realized what I had just done. “It uh... It was a little warm in... Yeah.” I fled to the bathroom. The last first impression I ever wanted to have on a vampire was one where my neck was on full display and my entire upper body was blushing with embarrassment. Either way, it was the porter’s cardigan now. I didn’t know how I would ever face him again.

I collected the remainder of my pride and marched out of the bathroom, heading for the bar. I saw a man staring into a glass of untouched Merlot. His mouth had a smile that didn’t reach up above his cheekbones. His eyes had that sullen expression in them that men rely on when they would rather be weeping. I took a step forward. At that same moment, some woman in her own little black dress approached him. I hid myself behind a post, close enough to listen in.

“Still think she’s coming, hun?” she asked. She was a bit sloshed herself.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” he said, keeping his tone even and cool.

“I wouldn’t stand you up,” she said. I peered around the corner. She was rubbing the middle of his back.

“That’s not what has me down, but thank you,” he said. “She’ll be here.”

“What’s wrong, hun?”

“Just thinking... Hypothetically, if this were my last night alive, I’d be spending it the same as I’ve spent the majority of my life. Waiting for a woman.” She giggled.

“I’m here!” she said. He put up a gentle barrier with his arm, deflecting her. “Alright, but I’ll be back in fifteen minutes when she doesn’t show.”

“She’ll be here,” he said. She staggered back to her table, and he sat upright. He turned himself around in his stool, right in my direction. I ducked back behind the post. Not that I didn’t want to be seen. I just didn’t want him to know I was creeping. I took a few steps back before I rounded the corner, to give off the impression that I had been walking like a regular human the whole time. He chuckled at me as I approached. “Sorry about her. She’s had quite a few.”

“You knew I was there the whole time?” I asked.

“I heard your voice at the door,” he said. I was back to blushing. He eyed me up and down; I imagine that I must have looked like a giant, strawberry ice-cream cone in his eyes, from the way half my chest was on display. “August.”

“Samantha,” I said.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said so suddenly that it clamped down on the last syllable of my name, like gorgeous was my new title.

“D-did you want to get a table or...?” I asked.

“I didn’t plan on eating anything,” he said. “I just needed to see you. I needed to explain.”

“Well, you’ve got my attention,” I said. He handed me the wine. It was still cool, like it had just been poured. I took a sip.

“I’m sure you think I’m a monster. I want you to know that I don’t drink live. Never have. Never will. I get by on milk and plasma,” he said. “The Council summoned me because I attacked one of their sons. He was in a blood frenzy, and I had to stop him. And now, there’s a good chance they’re going to put me in the ground for what I did.”

“What? That’s bullcrap,” I said.

“Yeah... Good old nepotism and political corruption,” he said, looking me over again. “I don’t suppose your crossbow is in your cardigan, is it?”

“...Why?”

“Could use some backup,” he said.

“A job interview...” I said, the tension passing. I was still a mercenary, after all.

A faint smile crossed his lips. “Sorry, I know it’s a lot to ask. We only just met, and I figured it was worth a shot—”

“No, I don’t have my crossbow with me,” I said, curling a strand of hair around my finger. He sighed. “Nor do I need it.

“You’ll help?”

“Yeah. Lead the way.”

satire
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