Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 14
Peeling Onions
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Vampire mythology has long held that there is an obansam — an immortal vampire hunter who stalks vampires across continents. The weird thing about this myth is that only one is said to have ever existed but that he persists to this day. No matter what era I’ve lived in, the notion that he was around somewhere floated within the background of our existence. I had never met anyone who had encountered such a being. I was also certain that Owens wasn’t the obansam. I had met his father, who was clearly human. Creatures as powerful as the obansam don’t get tossed into lakes.
“Shh, don’t let him know I told you this,” smiled Longtooth broadly as Owens, looking chagrined, walked his way back to our table with his gun still strapped behind his back.
“Oh, I won’t,” I said facetiously.
Satisfied, Longtooth crossed his arms as he sat back.
“Mother fucker,” said Owens when he sat down next to me, putting both hands on the table as he glared at Longtooth. “Did you know he could do that?” he asked me. My hands gave a shrug on the table.
“Good to see you, too, Koyayuda Kwadwo,” said Longtooth.
“The fuck?” asked Owens, continuing to look at me. “Koy what?”
“I think he’s profiling you, detective,” I said.
“So, you don’t believe he is the obansam?” Longtooth asked me.
“I know he’s not,” I answered.
To imagine what happened next, it helps to think of a video running at a much higher frame rate than normal. Because that’s how it looked when Longtooth grabbed a fork and plunged it into one of Owens’ hands. It happened so quickly that it almost looked like a blur. Owens yelled out in pain and uttered a volley of curses that would have made the most profane dude you ever knew blush. Longtooth’s hand glowed a pulsing blue as it let go of the fork.
I ran to the counterman and asked him for a first aid kit. “Quickly,” I said.
He scurried to a small closet behind the counter and handed one to me, but not before saying, “Will you people please get the hell out of here?” I nodded, gave him my thanks, and then ran to Owens, who had somehow extracted the fork from the back of his hand and was bleeding all over the table.
Like vampires, the obansam, if it existed, was supposed to heal instantly from an injury like a fork in the hand would cause. Instead, Owens was reeling in pain as I applied some antiseptic and bandaged his wound. His stream of curses against Longtooth piled up like a dictionary of expressive epithets was continuously spilling its contents out of a white noise machine.
“My bad,” acknowledged Longtooth with an amused grin. “Sure looks like him. Good thing I didn’t aim for his eye. Though, some people think an eye patch is badass.” He returned to his cockney accent. He grabbed the fork and held its bloody prongs up as he tapped it on the table. This meeting was going almost as badly as the one at my house.
I looked at Longtooth. “Would you rather torment humans than nail some Wurdulac for killing your brethren?”
Longtooth smiled grimly. “In a perfect world, there would be no humans to torment.”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Owens said to me, “No way I’m riding in the car back to Wolfie’s with that prick.”
“I’m assuming Longtooth has other means of transportation,” I said, finishing the bandage. “There.” I patted Owens’ wrist gently. “Good as new.”
“Fucker,” was all Owens would say, staring at Longtooth, continuing to wince through pain. Something had to explain Owens’ lack of fear around vampires, but it wasn’t that he was the obansam.
As I sat with these two, I realized there was no doubt which of them I liked better. If Longtooth and Moreland were right and my hanging out with humans was going to kill me someday, I felt I’d be better for it. Owens could be a jerk, but he had integrity. Longtooth was a sociopath.
“So, you were acquainted with this Wolfie fellow?” asked Longtooth.
I nodded. “Friend of a friend. We came up here because we needed to get out of the public view.”
“Ah yes, that bit of business with the Wurdulac back at your ranch. It has made for quite a public display of vampirism. Not a good look to present to the innocent and quite frail human public.”
“Well, Moreland said you and a few others have expressed your displeasure at my public displays, but here you sit, fangs and all, in a coffee house for all to see.”
“Quite different,” said Longtooth. “The audience is considerably smaller. I see all of two.”
“But more likely to believe it’s real. My audience knows otherwise.” It was also Halloween, which meant that Longtooth was just another costume, but I wasn’t willing to acknowledge that argument to him.
“But it’s not otherwise. That’s the problem. Besides, stick around this town long enough and I suspect that you’ll find it’s a bit more layered than you think. Ah, well. I didn’t come out here from Jolly Ole to harangue you for your media habits. I find them distasteful, but I’m a libertarian at heart. I came here to discover what happened to my fellow Longtooth.”
“Jade told you, now you know, so go home,” said Owens.
“He has pluck!” smiled Longtooth, looking at Owens. “If he wasn’t made of such dreadfully faulty wiring, I’d understand why you honor him with the presence of your company.” That ushered forth a classic Owens eyeroll.
“He was bit about three weeks ago,” I said, referring to Wolfie. “Died two days ago. When we got here, he was dying in a chair. Last breaths. A scout was in Wolfie’s cabin when we arrived. It flew off but I doubt it went away. Probably been watching us.”
“The Wurdulac are apparently not expert strategists. They should have attacked when the babes were incubating. Perfect opportunity for a slaughter,” said Longtooth.
“You know about Moreland turning the influencers who came with me here?” I asked.
“The influencers?” asked Longtooth. “What a most obvious contradiction in terms for who they were before Moreland saved them from oblivion. Yes. WallaceCam is currently the rage of that horrid human internet network. I believe they call it, trending. Such awfulness. But of course, as you have said, the human population seems to consider it all an extension of their Halloween. Staged, as it were. Some of them, you may be interested in knowing, find it all quite distasteful in light of recent news events.”
I had been avoiding the internet since arriving at Wolfie’s Lair. Big Mistake. “Damnit, I need to bust Raygun a new one,” I said, looking at Owens.
“I’m happy to help with that,” said Longtooth. “Just lead the way. Or not,” he smiled mischievously. “I’m sure I can sniff him out on my own.”
I asked Owens, “Why didn’t you say something about this being all over the internet, Owens? The cops gotta be watching, too.”
“Me? You’re the internet guy. Anyway, they are. But the police only know you’re in the hills somewhere. Raygun has been applying a blur filter to the trees and such on those WallaceCams. They already knew the bus was heading north. The police, and normally I would say, we, are not in much better shape now than they were two days ago. The Georgia State Patrol is probably scanning the place with copters, but the area is pretty secluded.”
“Except when Moreland spread them out in some open areas,” I said with a shiver of disgust.
“Did you hear any copters overhead?” Owens asked.
I shook my head. “Maybe way in the distance once or twice. That’s it.”
“Curious that the Wurdulac did not kill your friends whilst they were laid out like slabs of meat in the forest,” said Longtooth. “There has been no mention of such a beast in the videos, either.” He said the word either with a capital I. It was such an overly affected, and artificial, English accent that I wanted to slap him. I wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a villain in an American movie. Just a villain.
He continued: “But in truth, I have watched very few of these videos. They only drew my interest because you were mentioned. I failed to deduce that you were in the vicinity. If I had been paying closer attention, I would have. Although it did immediately cross my mind when you walked into this fine establishment with this human puke.”
Owens looked like he was about to reach around his back for Cornelia again, but Longtooth waved a finger and said, “Ah-ah. No more flying weapons, eh? The cleanup bill will become quite steep.” He tapped the prongs of his fork against his own eye.
That made me think of the guy at the counter, who was no longer at the counter. He was at the front door talking to what looked like two deputies. I motioned to Owens as I stood up.
“Meet us at Wolfie’s place,” I said to Longtooth. “And don’t kill anybody.”
“Not even law enforcement?” smiled Longtooth, looking at the conversation at the front door.
Amazingly, the girl with the snake bites was still there. Staring at us. I wondered if she had been watching us nonstop from the moment things got interesting. Longtooth stood up, too.
We all headed for the front door. When I reached the girl, I complimented her snake bites, then reached down and bit her gently on the neck.
“How pathetic,” said Longtooth as the cops reacted by pulling their guns. “Don’t just tenderly poke at her neck. Tear it up.” I only wanted to make sure she wasn’t a witness to whatever was about to happen. I rested her head gently against the table. I snuck in a quick gulp from her arteries, but other than that, I didn’t feed from her, although I could have used the sustenance.
One of the cops fired his Glock and hit me in about five places as he yelled at me to halt without giving me any chance to do so. It hurt like hell. “God, I hate that,” I said as I staggered back. “Why do you guys have to shoot a hundred times at people?” None of the shots were very effective. Two in my legs, three in my shoulders. I was lucky. A shot to my heart would have sent me to the floor for more than a few minutes. I’m a good jumper, so I was able to leap over three empty tables in an arc as my hands landed around the deputy’s neck. My jaws fastened to it as he grunted an obscenity. We both crashed to the ground.
I quickly stood up, hoping I could get to the other deputy before Longtooth, but I was too late. The other deputy was sprawled out on his back on the sidewalk, his neck surrounded by a growing pool of blood. I screamed at Longtooth, “What’s the matter with you?” as he wiped his lips.
“He’ll live if the paramedics come quickly.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to the coffee guy. “I have to do this.” I grasped his shoulders, bit him, and let him fall to the ground after a few more scrumptious gulps. Then I dialed 911.
Further down the quiet street a mother and her two kids holding balloons were slowly heading our way. I wondered where she found two helium balloons at this hour of the morning. “Let’s get out of here. We can’t take down everybody in town.”
“Yes we can,” said Longtooth. “It’s a small town.”
Owens was already in the Lincoln, firing up the engine.
“Meet us at Wolfie’s, and if you kill anybody, I’ll kill you,” I said to Longtooth as I opened the passenger door.
“Oh my. Battle of the vampires. The loathsome sloths who spend their days on the internet will enjoy that if we can find an appropriate arena. Well. Don’t worry, your precious human pet won’t be harmed,” said Longtooth, referring, I assumed, to Daphne.
“That went well,” snarled Owens after I got into the car. Owens backed out of his parking spot and squealed toward the courthouse.
“You still want to go to the M.E.’s office after all that?” I asked.
“Don’t you?” he said.
I shrugged. “How’s that hand?”
“Hurts like a mother fucker but I’ll live.”
“I wish Longtooth was a reliable partner. We could use his help at the medical examiner’s.”
“Shit, Mourning, if he doesn’t slaughter this entire town, I’ll consider it a win.” He shook his head. We were at the courthouse in no time. We hadn’t talked about how we’d get into the medical examiner’s office. I asked him. He said his part was covered. He had a badge. But the brouhaha at the coffee house was bound to have already made its rounds around the sparsely populated town. We decided we’d take our chances anyway.
“And who am I in all this?” I asked. “One look at me and they’ll escort us out of the building. No way they’re letting me in through the…”
He interrupted me. “Get out of the car now. Before me. Walk up to the officers who screen the entrance like you’re just an ordinary Joe arriving for a court date or something. I’ll meet you once you get through the checkpoint. They’ll give you funny looks, but it’s Halloween. Fuck ‘em. Go on now, out.”
“Yessir, Captain Owens.” I saluted, then got out of the car and headed for the courthouse doors, looking around for signs of spreading panic over what happened at the coffee house. Somewhere, I knew, police were scrambling. Not here, yet, I thought, as the two officers at the courthouse checkpoint seemed calm. I put my phone and keys into a plastic tray. I was glad I didn’t have my knife with me. That would have caused an obvious problem. I had left my ammo vest in the car, too. I’m not as dumb as I look.
I got the funny looks Owens predicted. One of the officers was a chubby female who smiled at me with two adorable dimples. I smiled back with my mouth closed. I didn’t want her to see my teeth because I didn’t want her to try to confiscate them.
I wasn’t even close to being the shadiest character loping about. The guy in front of me smelled like he hadn’t showered since the prior century. The young woman behind me had meth teeth and spoke broken English, even though I could tell it was the only language she knew. Two skinheads each with tattoos of female names on their necks stared at me like they wanted to jump me.
Owens was waiting at a water fountain at the end of the long, wide corridor. I’ve never been an architect, but the place seemed ten times bigger than it needed to be. Every sound bounced an echo around the immense hall. I was sure that if Owens took a drink from the fountain, I’d hear the trinkle of water dance along the walls on its way to my ears.
Owens was motioning for me to hurry, so I picked up the pace. When I reached him, he didn’t bother greeting me, but instead turned around expecting me to follow. I did. He opened a metal door under an exit sign, and we went down some concrete stairs into a dingy hallway. We passed a holding cell made from thick, wired fencing instead of jail bars. A man was asleep, snoring, with his head on a roll of toilet paper on a concrete bench.
The hallway ended with our destination, a room with a sign that said “Jake Stratton, Medical Examiner.”
“Gotta love these rural counties,” said Owens. “One stop shopping.” He pounded on the door. A gruff looking bearded man with a combover opened the door, looking up at us. He was a short, portly man who acted like he was in a hurry when Owens showed him his badge. Owens had earlier said that he knew there was about a fifty-fifty chance that the M.E. would call Owens’ inquiry into the Atlanta P.D. police department, but he was all about taking chances now. Since no Atlanta cops were waiting for us with their arms crossed, I guessed we were in the clear for now.
“You the city boy who called earlier?” asked the M.E. I thought he lingered too long with his drawl on the word, boy, so I was sure that Owens did, too. If Owens noticed, he ignored it and continued to silently show his badge, which seemed unnecessary to me since it was hanging from his neck now. A part of me wanted to know why he didn’t wear it at the coffee house, but not a big enough part to ask.
“Come on, then,” said the M.E., leading us into the room. “But I gotta say, this is a very strange case.” He turned around to stick his hand out for Owens to shake. “Jake Stratton.” Owens extended his other hand, the one not hurt, and said, “Detective Owens.” Stratton switched hands and they shook.
There were two bodies on metal carts. Guess what? They really do use toe tags in these places. “Who’s the blue man?” asked Stratton, looking at Owens, then me.
“My worst nightmare,” answered Owens. That apparently was sufficient for the M.E.
“This is Mr. Vance Williamson,” said Stratton, pointing to one of the bodies. “Ex-marine, owner of the Jerrold Mountain RV and Trailer Park. “Co-owner, actually. That’s his wife and co-owner there, Van.”
“Seriously?” asked Owens.
“Good people, them.”
“Vance and Van?” asked Owens. He was shocked by names, but not by seven-foot-tall vampires in the back of coffee houses in the Appalachian foothills of Georgia. Strange man.
We walked over to body number one. Vance was an older man with long locks of grey hair and an even longer grey beard. All the hair on his head and in his beard looked like it was white but dirty, filled with grit and grime. That’s where it seemed like the grey came from. His pale body had an ancient, worn tattoo of a symbol that I sort of recognized. Something from long ago, even from my perspective.
Owens leaned over to look at the neck. “I don’t see a wound. I was informed that these two were victims of a bladed attack.”
“That’s what the police report said,” said Stratton. “But there are no wounds on either one of these two. Not no more. They both healed.”
Owens nodded as if he knew.
“I met Vance thirty years ago. Shave his beard, clean him up a bit, and he looks exactly like he did when I met him. Can’t say the same for me. I look like shit,” Stratton laughed.
Vampires lose their blue hue after being bit by a Wurdulac. They also look dead while the body reacts to the bite before they wake up and begin their long road to suffering leading to death. Sometimes they don’t fall unconscious like these two did, but these two got bit good.
Owens took a wrist. “There’s no pulse,” he said.
“There’s a pulse. Just barely. I thought you people didn’t die,” Stratton added, looking at me.
“We die,” I answered. “We’re hard to kill is all. But we die.”
“But not from a knife wound. I seen what happens with a knife wound,” insisted Stratton.
“What happens?” asked Owens. He sounded irritated.
“Vance has been good enough to let me study him a bit. The wounds around his cells regenerate. This is more common than you might think in the animal kingdom. Ours, of course, regenerate, too. It’s called healing. Some animals regenerate considerably faster. Some replace appendages and other parts of the body. What is different with Vance and his wife is that it’s lightning quick. But it’s not beyond science. It ain’t magic.”
“You’re saying these two aren’t dead?” asked Owens.
“I don’t know what they are.” Stratton looked at me. “I know they’re good people. But I have a feeling your friend here will know more than I do.”
“How much do you know?” asked Owens.
“Well, probably more than I should. For my own safety, I guess you could say. But it is what it is. I can tell you this. They’re from Serbia, by way of the eighth century. Does that mean anything to you?” Stratton was being coy here, but not very. He knew what was going on, but he wanted to be sure Owens did, too.
“How long have you known about vampires in your area, Stratton? Because it seems like everyone I meet in this town is a fucking vampire.” Owens was aggravated.
I took my phone out.
“Who you texting?” demanded Owens.
“Moreland.” I turned my attention to Stratton. “Can I assume everybody in this godforsaken town has guns?”
Stratton nodded. “Pert near.”
“And how many do you suppose have .308 Winchester Rifles?” I asked.
“Oh no you don’t,” said Owens.
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Stratton. “Maybe more than a few. It’s a good hunting rifle. But why?”
“You’re an idiot,” Owens said to me. “It doesn’t have to be a Winchester, for God’s sake. Anything firing a three-oh-eight caliber.”
“In these parts, that would be mostly Winchesters,” said Stratton. “Lotsa thirty-aught-six aficionados in town, too. Might sniff their noses up on your Winchesters.”
While the conversation was raging, I was texting. “The bus will be here in an hour,” I said. I wasn’t as much of an idiot as Owens thought I was. I knew he likely knew something about Vance and Van. It was why we were here. His feigned surprise when he asked Stratton how long he was aware of vampires in the area didn’t fool me. For all I knew, Vance and Van were in his granddad’s book, too.
Fittingly, while I considered that, Vance woke up, his eyes wide open. “Owens?” he wheezed. “That you?” He jumped off the gurney and started hopping around. Naked as a newborn. I realized he was trying to knock the toe tag off his foot.
“You old shit,” Owens smiled. “Come ‘ere.” Vance and Owens embraced like old army buddies.
“Am I in the damn morgue?” Vance asked. Still naked. I couldn’t think of a time when I more longed for a big blanket.
“Yeah you are,” laughed Owens. “’Bout time, too.”
“What the fucks’s going on?” I asked, but it seemed like I was asking the air in the room because Owens acted like I wasn’t there. I pulled the sheet off Vance’s gurney, handed it to him, and said, “Please?”
“She okay?” asked Vance, looking at the other body while cloaking himself in the white sheet.
“Don’t know. You got bit, it sounds like,” said Owens.
“Yeah, I was there, Owens,” responded Vance disparagingly.
“Sorry, I was…”
“Why are you here, Owens?” Vance then looked me up and down. “For a vampire hunter, you sho enough got a lot of vampy friends.”
“He’s not my friend,” replied Owens. “If I was FDR, he’d be my Stalin.”
Vance laughed. “We were a necessary alliance, too, once.”
Owens scoffed.
Vance walked over to his wife. I was under the distinct impression that it was his real wife. And had been for centuries. He brushed back a wisp of brown hair that was covering her face. She looked middle-aged. Which meant she was ancient. Much older than me. It was extremely rare for vampires to show deterioration through age. I thought that only vampires that were ten thousand years old or more could look at all old. But Vance looked old, too. Judging from how old they looked, it seemed weird that I didn’t know who they were. I wondered if the Wurdulac bites were already taking hold.
“Ma charmante femme,” Vance said. “Perhaps she will not wake up.” His voice escaped the Georgia drawl he had woken with and sounded incredibly sad.
“She’ll wake up,” I said.
“And you are?” asked Vance.
“Atticus Argeadai.”
“Thinks he’s a Greek god,” said Owens disdainfully.
Vance turned to look at Owens, then put his hand on his shoulder. “The Argeadai. It is a good house,” said Vance. Owens was tall, but Vance was taller.
“Fuck’s sake,” said Owens.
“Are you going to explain how you know each other?” I asked Owens.
“The captain and I go back a long way,” said Vance, releasing Owens’ shoulder and returning to studying his wife.
I laughed. “You call him captain, too?”
“He’s bossy,” said Vance.
Getting to know Owens was like peeling an onion. I was getting impatient to know what was in the middle of it.
“Owens, we don’t have time for secrets,” I complained.
“It’s no secret. You’ve never asked me if I knew other vampires. In my line of work, did you expect me to not meet any?” Another Owens eyeroll.
“His earthly line of work as an Atlanta police detective is a cover for his real line of work,” laughed Vance.
“You laugh a lot for a guy who is dying, and his wife is dying,” I said.
“I’ve lived a long life. So has my beloved. I’m almost relieved. You understand, I assume?”
I nodded. “Wait,” I said. “Real line of work? So Owens really is the obansam?”
Vance laughed. “There is no obansam. That is a wound on your hand, captain?”
“A Longtooth stabbed him with a fork to try to prove Owens is the obansam,” I said.
“There are Longtooth here?” Vance looked alarmed. “They’re almost as bad as the upyr. How many Longtooth have we killed together, captain?”
“I’d rather not say in mixed company,” said Owens.
“Are you allied with the Longtooth clan?” Vance asked me. It wasn’t a threatening voice. It sounded more like something asked by a college professor.
“I’ve had no reason to fight with them, but I can’t say I’m a fan.”
“This Longtooth, the one in town, said he’s here because one of his clan was killed,” said Owens.
“The one in the mountains,” said Vance. “I know of him. A loner.”
I nodded. “He was killed by a Wurdulac — an upyr, as you call them. I told Longtooth that, but I’m not sure he believes me, and is checking it out for himself.”
“And you, captain. You sat face to face with this Longtooth?”
“Aye,” said Owens. I was impressed with the accent he used when he answered. He sounded very Scottish as he raised his damaged hand.
“He’s not just a Longtooth,” I said. “He is Longtooth. He is the inheritor of the name.”
“Well, then. Those killings in the city are not a coincidence,” said Vance. “And you are now indebted to the House of Argeadai for your life,” he added, looking at Owens. “Because I assure you that your neck would require that bandage that is now on your hand if Atticus Argeadai had not been with you.”
“Well, just kill me now, then,” said Owens.
“He owes me nothing,” I said. “We share this fight, whatever it is.”
Owens’ eyes widened like I had just handed him Longtooth’s head on a platter. I continued: “Besides, he saved my life. It is I who owe the debt.”
“A debt I’ll be glad to see you pay,” laughed Owens.
“Then you both have the bond of life and eternal friendship. There is nothing that can break this bond,” said Vance.
“Not even his unrelenting dickishness?” asked Owens. “He really is quite the asshole.”
“Not even,” said Vance, gently placing a hand on Owens’ shoulder. “Help me move her,” said Vance, looking at his wife.
“Of course,” said Owens. I’d never seen him deferential to anyone, except maybe, just to the smallest degree, his partner Garrison. It was like a reverse personality. This was worth exploring someday.
We rolled the wheeled gurney out a back entrance Stratton pointed to. Owens went to get the Lincoln while Vance and I waited with his wife and Stratton.
“I don’t hear sirens,” I said.
“Sorry?” asked Vance.
“Sirens. We caused quite a scene at the coffee shop when Owens got stabbed with the fork.”
“I see,” said Vance.
“And I got shot by a cop. Five times.”
“Oh my. They’re trained better, I thought,” said Vance.
“Trained better? All cops are trigger happy,” I replied.
“One look at you should have told him you’re a vampire,” Vance said.
I laughed.
Vance didn’t react. He only said, “There are several dozen of our kind here in Jerrold Mountain. We have an understanding with local law enforcement and the villagers. But there has been much turnover in the police department during these past two years. And additions. A few don’t know of us yet. I assume the officer who wrote up the initial police report about my injuries was one of these. And whoever shot you.”
In my imagination, I could hear Longtooth saying, “How delightful.” I wasn’t sure which was most interesting: “Many of us here,” or “We have an understanding,” or “yet.”
“Probably the same guy,” said Owens. “I’ve got scars bigger than this town.”
I looked at Stratton, who shrugged. “Vance and his wife were found by tourists,” Stratton said. “Their necks were severed, covered in blood. We had to act as if the witness account was accurate. They saw what they saw.”
“Part of the deal,” continued Vance, changing the subject somewhat, “is that when vampires are involved in a brawl with one another, the police stay out of it.”
“Well, it wasn’t a brawl so much as Longtooth being a dick,” I said. “The cop thought I was attacking a human.”
“Were you?”
“I was sedating her. I didn’t want her to remember the events.”
“We don’t do that here.”
“Sorry, I missed the sign on the way into town that said, ‘Vampire-friendly zone, please don’t bite the humans.’”
Vance laughed. “It goes back many years. It’s a quiet town. Unlike some of the rural communities further south, Atlanta has not encroached upon us. It probably never will. It’s the “we have our own way of doing things’ mantra multiplied many times over. We take weekly drives into the northern suburbs to feed.”
“So you knew I was a vampire when I arrived?” I asked Stratton.
“How’d I do?” smiled Stratton.
“Not bad,” I said.
“I wonder what the hell is going on,” said Vance.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“So many visitors suddenly descending upon us. Including Longtooth. The killings in Atlanta. The upyr here. It seems ominous.”
“That’s because it is ominous,” I said. “But we have reinforcements on the way.”
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