Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 13
Jerrold Mountain
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Twelve new vampires later, Owens returned looking like he had been devoured by stress. His 49ers jersey was a bit stained and his Braves baseball cap askew. The two incubation days had passed at Wolfie’s lair without incident, but not in general. There were two new killings while Owens was gone. Big problem: the killings were only about ten miles south of our encampment. In these remote hills of north Georgia, that meant that the killings were in the first town south of us that had a streetlight or two.
Owens said that his initial reaction to the news was to call for a nuclear strike on our encampment since circumstantial evidence suggested that one of us was the killer (the evidence being that we were in the vicinity). The only things stopping him, he said, was that he didn’t think the Atlanta PD had nukes, and that he was on office duty anyway, pending investigation. Although, he added, his captain had told him with a wink to return to the scene of the interstate massacre and sniff around.
It was an early October evening. The night before Halloween. The new “kids,” as Moreland called them, had been awake for about an hour. Raygun and Daphne were the only humans left besides Owens.
We made a bonfire while Owens unloaded a big car – it looked like an old Lincoln Continental from the 1970s. The car he borrowed from Wolfie’s neighbors, a rusted-out Chevy Nova, also from the 70s, barely made it to Atlanta before it became a smoke bomb. Owens said he couldn’t use a police-issued vehicle until “some things were sorted out.” Office duty.
He distributed guns and ammo vests to everyone, even though nobody knew how to use the fancy rifles. He brought more than the Bergara rifles. There were other exotic rifles I had never seen. I didn’t ask where they all came from since he was supposed to be shuffling papers. A part of me wanted him to play a huge disciplinary price for acquiring all the weaponry, but another was happy to see him breaking rules and figuring it all out.
One of the influencer vampires played a game with the bonfire, sticking his arm into the flames and laughing when his arm dissolved into a bright, snowy effluence. Then he’d pull it away from the flame, triggering laughter from the other influencers. Kids these days.
Later, Owens gathered everyone, including Daphne and Raygun, and set up an impromptu class on how to use the new weaponry. Most wanted to wait until daylight, but Owens insisted that they may not be alive in the morning. The class was loud. Lots of gunfire. I didn’t know how many people might live up in the hills surrounding Wolfie’s lair, but if they were vampires, every single one of them would have heard the raucous. I couldn’t guess what humans would hear. Either way, it didn’t seem wise to stay on the mountain long, although, on the other hand, the people who lived in those hills weren’t the type to invite the police up for a chat.
Owens had returned alone, which meant that his partner Garrison was still not in on Owens’ project in the north woods of Georgia. “Why do you suppose the Wurdulac didn’t come while your friends were incubating?” he asked me after his class was finished.
I shrugged, wanting to ask questions about his phantom police partner. “I dunno,” I answered. “Maybe there’s only one or two of ‘em. We were ready for them. Either way, their scout knows what is going on. If there are more Wurdulac in the area, they’ll come in force.”
“There’s a scout here? You’ve seen it?” asked Owens.
“Has to be. No, I haven’t seen it. I won’t see it. It’s up in the trees somewhere. For all we know, some Wurdulac are, too. They can hide like a mother fucker. They’re like chameleons.”
“You do know that every time I have a little chat with you, that you deliver a nugget of really shitty news, right?”
“Well, on the bright side,” I answered, “We’ve got twelve shiny new vampires here ready for duty, captain.”
“Like I said. Every fucking thing out of your mouth.” Owens shook his head while playing with his weapon. “So, you know how to use one of these?” he asked.
“Sure, but this is more sporting,” I said. I pulled the slingshot that had been on the bus from the pocket of one of the tan ammo vests Owens had provided.
“I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously,” Owens said sarcastically.
“I am.” I pulled one of his fancy meteor bullets out of another pocket. The slingshot wasn’t a toy. It was a hunter’s slingshot, probably used for killing rabbits, with a wide, long yellow band that had a small, saucer-shaped holder in the middle. “Watch,” I said, loading the bullet. “See that eye in the bark under that branch?” I pointed to a tree. It was a lot easier for me to see in the dark than it was for Owens.
I pulled back the band of the slingshot and fired the bullet into the tree. “You want to be sure to aim for their eyes if you can. That’s like the canyon of the Star Wars Death Star to Wurdulacs. Their weak point. Achilles heel. Whatever. Well, you knew that I guess.” I remembered his takedown of the Wurdulac in the woods.
My shot was perfect. I walked over to the tree, motioning for Owens to follow me. The shell casing had shattered inside the bark eye. “I’ve killed more than a few of these bastards with slingshots, Owens. But these are better than the ones I used.” I looked at it. “In the old days, they were more like short, thin ropes you hurled shit with. Stones, usually. But as soon as I saw one of these, years ago, I tried it out. Practiced a lot, mostly, really, for sport, since I thought Wurdulacs were extinct. Got good with it. If I get one in the eye with this? It’s dead. And I usually can.” I wasn’t sure if arsenic was a requirement for success because I had always used arsenic. Now I had Owens’ meteor bullets, so it didn’t matter.
Owens picked what was left of the end of the shell casing out of the tree. “You telling me I coulda saved my ass a whole lotta trouble just by getting twelve slingshots?” he laughed.
“Nah. The guns are much more efficient. And our little army couldn’t learn to fire a sling in a day or two.”
“They probably won’t learn the gun, either,” said Owens in a voice accented by worry. “That’s gotta take some strength to get the velocity you need,” said Owens, almost sounding impressed.
I ruined the moment by saying, “I got the strength. I could probably throw you to the next hill.”
Owens uttered a few complaints about me, coloring them appropriately with his usual string of cursing. Charly strode up next to us and wedged his big body between us. “You two squabbling again?” He looked at the expanded hole in the tree. “That would look mighty fine on a Wurd skull, but you should still use one of these,” he said to me, lifting his gun toward me.
“This, captain, is very nice,” I said to Owens, pulling from my belt a karambit he had also brought. I ran my finger along the outside of the curved blade. When Owens had unloaded the trunk of his car, he unpacked an impressive set of supplies, most of it military-grade weapons like the karambit I was showing him. I had liked it upon seeing it so much that I set my own aside. I looked at Charly. “Between this and my slingshot, I’m set, Charly.”
“Dude can pop out an eye from a hundred yards the way he uses that slingshot,” Owens said to Charly.
“Fifty bucks says he can’t,” said Charly.
“You’re on.” They fist-bumped. Things were looking up. I needed to learn how to be nicer to Owens.
“How are you keeping your fellow law enforcement brothers at bay?” asked Charly, taking words out of my mouth that I had been chewing on since Owens’ reappearance. “They musta had a lot of questions for you.”
“Don’t worry about that” Owens replied. “I handled it. Less you know the better. Especially if I need to bring y’all in on a bunch of murder charges.”
“They jacked up jail security that much since you left?” asked Charly. He couldn’t help himself. He had to say more: “Found some Navy Seals who wanted to downgrade to correctional officers?”
Owens sighed. “I can’t stay long. Leaving in the morning. I just wanted to get these guns to you so y’all had a fair chance against these things. Despite the obvious fact that I’ll probably regret this for eternity.”
“Eternity? Only if Moreland chomps you in the neck,” laughed Charly.
“Point taken,” said Owens. He looked at me. “I still need your help. The Atlanta P.D. is about a minute away from losing jurisdiction on the murder cases there. Looks like state law enforcement is getting involved now that two more killings have taken place outside of Atlanta.”
“You said ten miles south of here?” I asked.
“Yep,” answered Owens. “In Jerrold Mountain. Hippie couple who owned a trailer park.” Neither of us knew at the time that we were encamped at the summit of the town’s namesake.
“Why are you handing out weapons to everyone here if you are convinced one of us is the killer?” I asked.
“I lie,” Owens replied. “I don’t think any of you are. One, you’re all accounted for. Two, here’s what I really think. I think someone is following you around. The Jerrold Mountain killings weren’t Wurdulac killings. No doubt. That leaves, who? Someone you know. Someone who is maybe even trying to frame you for the killings. Someone’s got a grudge against you, Mourning. I don’t know, man. I don’t even know for sure that the modus operandi,” he said operandi with a capital I, “is exactly the same. I need to check that out.”
“The first thing the local hillbilly sheriff will do when you nose around is call your superiors in Atlanta and complain,” I said.
“I got no superiors anywhere, Mourning, you should know that by now. I’ll handle it.” Sometimes, I liked Owens. Or maybe he was growing on me.
“You should bring me with you,” I said.
“That town is about as rural hick as they come. They’ll take one look at you and you’ll find yourself dangling from a tree branch faster than you can spin a ponytail.” I had been wearing my long hair in a ponytail of late, so of course Owens needed to chide me for it.
“I’ll just tell anyone who asks I’m sick. Works every time.”
“No, man, they’ll see that purple hair, think you’re light in the loafers, and put you in a tree. I’m tellin’ you.”
“I’ll be fine, Owens,” I said, rolling my eyes Owens-style.
“Alright. Come along, then. It’ll be a comedy of errors but fuck it, it would be good if I can find a way for you to check out the body. See what’s up.”
“I can bite my way into the M.E.’s office if I have to. They’ll never know we were there. We should bring Moreland, too.”
“She’s too good at killing Wurdulacs,” said Owens. “We need her here.”
“Charly?”
“We need him here, too,” said Owens. He looked at Charly. “Mostly, I need him wherever I ain’t.”
Charly shrugged. “I don’t even know,” he said.
“Since when do you care what happens to vampires?” I asked Owens. “All these people are vamps, now.”
“But it’s not their fault. I’m a cop. I see the victim angle, every time.”
“Well, in that case, I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t choose to be born a vampire.”
“Fair enough. But your friends are needed here. These folks,” he added, as he surveyed the people wandering around the encampment and circling the fire, “are helpless babes in the woods. We leave at the break of dawn. We get in, we get out as quick as we can.”
I knew we needed to stay the night on the top of the mountain. The chances of a Wurdulac strike were historically greater at night than during the day, although that hadn’t been the recent pattern. Predicting Wurdulac behavior wasn’t always easy.
I made the rounds the next morning saying my goodbyes like I’d never see anyone again. Daphne noticed, saying she had never seen me so morose. “Snap out of it. We need the positive, can-do Jade Mourning,” she said. If only she knew what an act that was. I told her I’d try my best. I didn’t want to leave her, even though we hadn’t been spending a lot of time together. Out of all the ones who had a chance to turn, why did she have to be the one to say no? Selfish or not, I was a little hurt.
Moreland was easier. “Good riddance,” I said, to which she replied, “I wish.” Then we hugged. By now, I don’t need to mention that we have a strange relationship.
I said goodbye to Charly, Raygun, and a few others before Owens started getting impatient. “Can we get the hell out of here?” he whined. “You’re not going off to war, you’re poking around a few hillbilly buildings.”
I wasn’t worried about what might happen to Owens and me. I was worried about what might happen while we were gone. I imagined a flock of Wurdulacs dive-bombing my friends. I imagined coming back to a litter of bodies lying around bleeding from their eye sockets. I imagined the dust of Daphne being carried away in a Wurdulac abdominal sac.
I reluctantly followed Owens to the old Lincoln. When we got in, I asked, “Grandpappy’s car?”
Owens had changed into black pants and a black dress shirt opened up at about the third button to reveal three necklaces. He wore a camel fedora hat. He was going to be an interesting accompaniment to a purple-haired vampire with blueish skin in a town where the only people of color were images on television sets, safe, far away, and locked up in a thin flat box. “Got it at the impound,” he answered. “Been there a year, so it’ll be sold off at auction.”
“Cops just jump into unclaimed impound vehicles?” I asked as he started the car, which sounded like a squealing animal before it settled into a more familiar rumble.
“No, I know a guy. At the impound. Owed me a favor. Can’t use a police vehicle til this shit gets sorted out by administrative crap.” He rolled the vehicle off the grass where he had parked it onto the narrow gravel road leading out of Wolfie’s lair.
“You fix a parking ticket for him?”
“Her. And no.”
“You said you know a guy,” I said.
“Shit, Mourning,” was all he said back. After he managed, with some trouble, to negotiate the big vehicle down the steep hill, I wondered how Raygun had ever managed to get the bus up the damned thing. The road was on the edge of the hill. The smallest of mistakes would send the car plummeting into a ravine.
When we reached a switchback, Owens relaxed. That made me think that maybe the curse wasn’t meant for me, but a reaction to the road, so I asked again, “So, her. What did you do for her?”
“Shit, man. You a reporter now?” The curse was for me.
“I like learning how you think is all.”
“Now that — that there is a lie.” The switchback widened into a paved road. “Good God. How do people live in this shit?” asked Owens.
“So?” I pursued.
“So the fuck what?” he asked testily.
“Come on, just tell me. You’re acting like it’s a state secret.”
“I found her kid, man, okay? He had gone missing, and I found him, all kidnapped and shit. By a banger in south Atlanta.”
“That’s not really a favor,” I said. I didn’t purposefully intend to always antagonize Owens. There was just something in his personality that prompted my behavior toward him. It was all very organic. “I mean, that’s your job, no?”
“Yes, Mourning, that’s my job. But believe me, when a mama says she’ll do anything anytime, you just name it, after you find her kid? She means it. And this was nothing to her. Just a paper shuffle.”
I offered him a peace pipe. “That must have felt good.”
“What?”
“Finding the kid.”
“Yeah, man. It did. They took the wrong kid, dumb fucks. Thought they were making off with a local drug dealer’s kid after a deal went bad.” He chuckled. “You know, I think they were glad I found him. They didn’t know what to do with the boy. I think they found out pretty quick it was the wrong kid.” He shook his head and chuckled again.
“How old was this kid?” I asked.
“I dunno, man. Thirteen or so?”
“So that feels good, right? I mean, being a cop, it’s not all bad all the time, right?”
“It’s always good to solve a case, Mourning. I just wish it would happen more than it does. People don’t trust us for shit. Hard to get help from witnesses and such.”
“Well I know for sure vampires don’t trust you,” I said. Back to form.
“Nor should you,” he sneered with a twisting smile.
Then a loud noise consumed the chassis of the car as it bounced angrily. “Mother fuck,” said Owens as the car jumped out of a hole in the ground and continued along the two-lane switchback. “Didn’t see that big ass hole. Sorry.”
“She couldn’t have paper-shuffled you into a better vehicle?” I asked. “A Land Rover maybe?”
Owens shrugged. “I was in a hurry.”
I patted the dashboard. “This here is the poster child for the excesses of our modern instant gratification society,” I said.
“Shit, man, this is gonna be a long assed ride,” said Owens.
“Be faster if you had a better car,” I said.
Owens had to laugh at that, and he did.
He found the freeway entrance shortly after that. The ten miles cruised by as we bantered about a few things barely worth remembering. We took an exit labeled “Jerrold Mountain,” which led us out of the forested surroundings into a valley with noticeably fewer trees. Owens drove past an abandoned gas station, then a bar named Jerrold’s Corner, before the road began to reveal more signs of civilization. The first big building we saw was a CVS with a line of cars snaking around its parking lot leading to a prescription drive-through. “The fuck’s wrong with these people?” asked Owens as he drove past. “What’s wrong with coffee?”
Down the street from the CVS was a Rite-Aid. “Good God,” said Owens. “Next up a liquor store, I’ll bet.” He was right. Just beyond the Rite-Aid, I saw a sign hanging over a well-worn storefront with several neon branded beer logos and a large rectangular sign over the door that only said, “Liquor” in all caps. Next to the liquor store was a small bar with one darkened neon logo in a small window. A sign reading “Red’s Recovery Room” hung next to it from a separate wood post. It should have been hanging from two chains, but one was broken, leaving the sign to dangle awkwardly in the wind.
A white-domed courthouse or government building popped into our line of sight several blocks away. Owens must have seen me notice it. “This is the county seat. We’ll hit the morgue first. Hope you sharpened your teeth when you woke up. We’re gonna need the amnesia action.”
We hit a four-way stoplight. The town started to look slightly more alive. The car bounced along a mosaic of inveterate potholes as we passed a motor inn, then a family restaurant called Dee’s Diner and Smokehouse. I guessed that Dee proudly flaunted anti-smoking laws. When we neared it, I sang an altered version of an old, famous Sinéad O'Connor song: “I can eat my food in a family restaurant…”
Owens threatened to shoot me with a meteor bullet.
When I was able to get a closer look, it became apparent that Dee had hit hard times. There were broken windows under a large white electric sign, also broken, and an empty parking lot strewn with paper and glass. I wondered if Dee was at the front of the line at the CVS.
We next drove past a small bottling company. Two trucks were backed up against loading docks. Two extremely overweight men with labels on their blue shirts were arguing about something next to an entrance. Beyond that was a series of the smallest big brand car dealerships I’d ever seen, a concrete plant, and the county airport, which seemed to have two hangars. Everything looked desolate.
Next, we passed a Chinese buffet, but it also looked abandoned, probably victimized by the latest pandemic. As the car bounced along the poorly maintained main drag, we entered the franchise food zone, led off by a Zaxby’s. The usual fare of other fast-food joints surrounded us as we drove closer to the domed building.
We finally encountered the downtown area. Vertical blue banners decorated brown light posts around the area as if the place thought it was going to attract tourists. “Jerrold Mountain. We welcome everybody from everywhere,” the banners said. The banner’s graphic was an illustration of a heron flying between two trees.
Owens parked the car into a vertical space pointing to a small coffee shop named “Morning Slope.” The white wooden sign for the place was etched with a crudely drawn mountain doubling as a face with a big nose. A cup of coffee with two vapors of steam was at the face’s smiling lips. It looked like it had been drawn by a child. Owens shut the car off and looked at me. “This is where it’ll get interesting,” he said. “I’m gonna grab a coffee. Want one?”
“I’ll go on in with you. It’ll be fun.” I envisioned something like a wild bar fight starting as soon as we walked in.
Owens shrugged. When he opened the door of the coffee shop, a small set of bells rattling against the top of the door alerted the people behind the coffee counter that we were there. The first person I noticed was a young woman sitting at a table reading a book. She looked up and smiled, revealing snakebite lip rings. She had a ring in her right eyebrow, too. She was very white, almost like you’d expect a vampire to look in many stories. She had short brown curly hair and was dressed in a T-shirt that said, “Morning sickness”. The legs in her severely distressed blue jean pants were crossed, with a sandal dangling from her swinging bare ankle.
Two young men dressed like goths chatted intensely at a table against a wall decorated with what looked like photos of grunge rockers. There was no real motif to the place. There were framed photos of different things plastered all over the walls. One guy was standing in front of a small airplane holding a cup of coffee. The rockers had coffee, too. Another photo showed a baseball player with a cup of coffee. Ah, I thought, that was the motif. Another photo was of an elderly couple each holding cups of coffee and smiling sweetly at each other.
A young man behind the counter with a mop of brown hair greeted us with a tired look from his seriously blemished face. “Sup?” He asked. “What can I get you?” Not the kind of greeting or place I had expected. Owens, too, I was sure. We each ordered the house coffee. The counter guy pointed to the sugar and cream after he delivered our drinks, and that was that. No, “Where you from?” or “Why are you blue?” type of stuff. No stares. Just a guy behind a counter.
“Hey,” said Owens to me as we began to head for the door with our to-go cups. “Check out that guy. Way in the back there.”
Owens had noticed an exceedingly tall man in a long, dark coat sitting in a corner cut off from the rest of the light of the shop and shrouded by two old, tall bookcases full of paperback books next to him. He was looking down, drawing something on what may have been a tablet of paper.
His long black hair stretched well below his shoulders on one side. His left temple was shaved. He had the long nose I remembered, like a beak, almost, and his dark blue skin blended with the dark blue of his coat to such an extent that it was hard to distinguish the man from the coat. “Shit,” I said.
“What?” asked Owens. He squinted. “Do I see what I think I see?”
“Keep making for the exit. Now,” I said. He did.
When we got out, I walked away from the view of the coffee shop window. “I know that guy.”
“Not in a good way, judging from your reaction,” said Owens.
“Why the hell is he in this tiny shit town in Georgia?” I wondered out loud.
“Who?”
I shook my head, wanting to take another look because it made no sense. “It’s Longtooth,” I said.
“Come on, seriously?” asked Owens. “Why would he be here?”
All I could do was shrug.
“Come on. You can do better than that.”
“I can’t. I have no idea.”
“No, Mourning. Coincidences like that don’t happen. What’s up between you two that you’re not telling me?”
There wasn’t anything. We got along fine. I didn’t like his style, but we didn’t have a history. I told that to Owens. “Look,” I said. “I know you and I aren’t friends or gonna ever send greeting cards to each other or anything. But I’m not gonna lie to you. I don’t have anything going on with this guy.” I thought about it for a minute. “Wolfie. Gotta be something to do with Wolfie. Same clan. But still. What?”
“Why don’t we ask the man?” Owens said. I nodded.
When we got inside, Longtooth waved me over to his corner. His hands were wrapped in tight, blue leather gloves. His fangs looked even more pronounced than I remembered. He motioned for us to sit. “Why’d you duck out?” he asked. “Well, no matter. I love Halloween in America,” he said, grinning widely. “Who’s the human fuck?” he asked, looking at Owens.
“This is my friend Standmoore Owens,” I answered, somewhat stretching the definition of the word.
“Standmoore?” Longtooth asked, leering in toward Owens. “Did he fall down frequently as a child? Well. No matter. Your human friends are gonna get you killed someday, Atticus,” Longtooth responded in his thick cockney accent, which changed depending on his mood. He looked at Owens. “Nice to meet you, standing more.” He sniffed toward Owens like he was smelling a fresh apple pie. “Mmm, should be easy to remember.”
“Why are you here?” I asked directly.
“Vacation. Why else? And you. What brings you to these…” He looked around, then finished with “…embankments of human rot?” His English accent seemed to become more aristocratic.
“Murders,” said Owens.
“Murders, says the human. Blimey. Not feedings?” He scribbled something on the pad of paper in front of him. The entire left side of his head was shaved. The other side was draped in long black strands of thick silky hair, much of it combed over from the middle. His skin was a darker blue than mine. Almost violet. His eyes were almost the same color as his skin, decorated with triangular yellow irises. He sighed, but it sounded more like a hiss. He disliked humans so much that it was probably taking a great deal of effort not to attack everyone in the coffee shop, starting with Owens.
Longtooth was as tall as Wolfie but not as thin. I wondered if he was taller than seven feet. I looked to see what he was scribbling. It looked like a map. “Our clan,” he said. “We know when one of us dies. I guess you could say it’s not too dissimilar to what a human twin experiences at times. But much stronger, of course. My clansman lives here. Or somewhere near here. Well, more properly, lived here, I should say. Past tense.” He tapped the eraser of his pencil against the paper. “Is this the murder you speak of detective?”
Now, if you’re paying attention to this story, you’ll know I never told Longtooth that Owens was a cop, much less a detective. Longtooth’s remark got Owens’ attention.
Owens looked at me. I shrugged. “Two humans killed here in town,” said Owens. “You’re the primary suspect.” Like I keep saying: The man is fearless.
When Longtooth cackled loudly, I swear pieces of cheap ceiling tile fell onto the floor. The few people in the coffee shop were now staring at us. It wasn’t a human laugh, and I think they knew it, although they probably wouldn’t know what to make of it. “Well, that’s delightful news,” said Longtooth. “You must be quite pleased with your detectivity. Is that a word in this mongrel English language, Atticus?”
“You fuckers don’t take anything seriously, do you?” asked Owens. He was asking me, I think, but it was hard to know.
“Oh, quite the contrary,” retorted Longtooth, looking menacingly at Owens. “This is very serious business. It’s you I don’t take seriously. You or any other weak primate with the lifespan of a fly.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Owens, getting up. He headed straight for the door.
“Where’s your little friend off to?” asked Longtooth as Owens stormed off.
“Probably to get his gun and blow your head off for being such a dick,” I said.
“Aww, come on, Atticus. Play with me. It’s fun.”
“What’re you drawing?” I asked.
“A map.” He tapped his index finger against the map. “I think that’s about where my clansman is. Do you know? I don’t even know the fellow’s name.” He handed the tablet to me. “Of course, I’ve never been there so I’m not even drawing it from memory. I guess you could say I’m drawing it from his memory.”
I looked at the map. It looked reasonably accurate. “They called him Wolfie around here,” I said.
He laughed less loudly this time. “That’s exquisite.” Now his accent fully reminded me of the received pronunciation normally carried by a polished British aristocrat. “Aha, look at that, my friend, you were so correct.” Longtooth was looking at the door. The barista ducked behind the counter as Owens charged through the door with Cordelia. The girl with the rings in her lip remained seated at her table as she simply stared. The two goths did, too. “Oh, this is divine,” smiled Longtooth as Owens’ gun flew out of his hands, over his head, and through the glass of the coffee shop door. “I so miss this kind of playtime,” Longtooth said calmly, taking back his pad of paper.
I could hear Owens cursing as he went to the door and its broken glass.
“Do you think he’ll give it another try?” asked Longtooth nonchalantly.
“How did you do that?” I asked. My head had fully turned around from Longtooth as Owens retrieved his gun from outside the coffee shop.
“Oh, that? That’s just a little parlor trick. My clan mastered… let’s see. What do the humans call it? Teleportation? No. That’s not it. Telepathy? No, ah! Telekinesis, that’s it. A long time ago. Your clan did, too, I’m quite sure. But sadly, I guess you’ve forgotten the technique. Lost in the fog of opprobrium offered by those human relationships you seem to cherish.” By now, Owens was talking to the coffee counter guy, peeling off bills of a denomination I couldn’t determine, and handing them to the stricken man.
“You knew Aristotle, did you not?” asked Longtooth.
“No, I never met him, why?”
“Pythagoras?”
“Before my time. Why?”
“I’m just imagining where the early vampires would have stood had they succumbed to this strange belief that humans have something to offer.”
“Oh, shit, Longtooth, human innovation is well documented. The blending of the cultures is what gave rise to classical thought.”
“No. Classical thought grew in spite of, not because of humanity. The only reason I bring it up is that the Greek vampires could have lost everything. Their mathematics, their music, their arts, all of it. Just as you’ve lost this.”
He looked down at my coffee cup, which slid across to his waiting hand without anybody touching it. “Your uncle was the greatest vampire who ever lived. Did you know that? Humans got lucky when Wurdulacs killed him. And now, humans try desperately to keep vampires in caves. But much to their surprise, we don’t much like caves.” The coffee cup slid back to me.
“I dunno, humans seem to be doing pretty well.” I took out my smartphone.
“That thing is a sign of progress?” sneered Longtooth.
Owens had slung his rifle over his shoulder and was outside sweeping the broken glass. I was amused. The young coffee counter guy was outside helping him. They were talking. I wondered about what.
“What on earth is he doing?” asked Longtooth as he observed Owens.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” I said. “Helping out like that.”
Longtooth put a hand on mine. “You really are a sick boy, aren’t you?”
I withdrew my hand from under his. The woman with the snake bite rings was still staring at us. I couldn’t see any of this going well. I looked for the goths, but they were gone.
“Wolfie was killed by a Wurdulac,” I said.
“Not by your vampire hunter friend?” asked Longtooth.
“Why do you call him a vampire hunter?” I asked.
“Why do you call him Owens?” he answered.
“Because that’s his name, but I like to call him captain.”
Longtooth laughed again. “His name is Koyayuda Kwadwo. He’s the obansam — he’s even older than you. Much older.” He leaned into me. “He has been hunting our kind since he was a boy walking barefoot along the golden beaches of western Africa, a very fucking long time ago.”
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