Frank, the site foreman walked up to me. "Son, …". Ha. 'Son', I thought. I'm a couple of decades older than you, Pop! "Son, I must say I'm impressed with your work. You look fit – that's why I hired you – but I didn't expect this! You've been laying bricks for nine hours and you don't show any signs of fatigue. Plus, you've come further than my best men."

Oops. This was my first day, and Frank's compliment much too close for comfort. I couldn't get my cover blown already, simply because I couldn't afford disappearing again.
"I've been doing a lot of exercising, but I'll surely have sore muscles until the weekend!" I lied.

I thought taking a job as a construction worker would be easy, because physical activity was as easy as breathing for me, and the jobs were not that hard to get. After my first day, I realized it was almost harder than before. Not because of the work, but to keep my cover. I could never forget to show a little aching when lifting 50 pounds of bricks, rather than taking the pile under one arm and adding a second under the other. It would have been too obvious.

"Quite possibly, Son." Frank went on. I ranted some more about his use of the word 'son' in my head. "Now make sure that everything is secure. Frank is going to hit tonight!" Frank laughed over his shoulder as he left. His running gag was dead after the first day already. Hurricane Frank was in the Gulf of Mexico and about to hit the West Coast of Florida. Nothing too terrible, it'll make landfall as a category one hurricane or just a tropical storm. Still, everything had to be secured.

I stayed in a cheap motel here in Cape Coral, just south of Fort Myers, Florida. Money was tight at the moment. I've made some good cash working as a field agent for the German intelligence, but I've spent a lot of it to get my new paperwork. An American passport was all my source could get me. I would have preferred staying in Europe, but it's hard to get a visa as an "American" in the European Union these days. The fact that I've lived longer in Europe than the most conservative politicians responsible for the strict visa regulations meant little. And I couldn't bring up that argument anyway.

Life is tricky as a half-vampire. Surely, you have some advantages. You don't age for instance. Looking twenty-five forever, who doesn't dream of that? You don't get sick either. Plus, humans think you look absolutely gorgeous.

But it has its downsides, too. You can't stay too long in the same area, because people notice that you still look twenty-five when you're supposed to be thirty. People notice if you walk faster than you should be able to. Also, you can't afford getting into any accidents, because you don't get injuries, or if you do, you heal within hours rather than months. You can never have any doctor examine you. First the needles they'd try to stick into your arm would break, and then your bloodwork would probably cause all their equipment to blow up.

And it gets worse. I can only imagine how bad the thirst must be for real vampires, but it's hard enough for me. And vampires don't bother, they drink. I tried to resist, and I was getting good at it. I haven't had human blood in almost eighty years, except for a little sip I allowed myself of a dead terrorist's body during a mission in Afghanistan. I got used to resisting the appealing smell humans present. But I'm only half a vamp, so only half the thirst? I didn't know that for sure. In fact, I knew very little about myself. Why? Because I had nobody I could compare myself to. Because I was one of a kind. Because I was alone.

I lived among the humans because they pose no threat to me. All the vampires who knew of my existence were dead. If dying is what they do when they … expire. I tried to keep out of the vampire world. My father, responsible for the vamp-genes in my system, told me about this bunch of vampires called The Volturi. And about their collecting boss Aro. He didn't collect art. He collected living things. Or things that appeared living I should say, since most pieces of his collection were actually dead, just still moving. I didn't know what the Volturi would do if they found out about my existence. I could only think of two things, and I didn't like either. They'd hunt me down, either to have me as their special pet, or to kill me.

I'd put my money on the latter. Maybe they would have made an exception for me being one of a kind. But it was my gift that nailed my coffin shut. My gift was extremely useless the way I lived my life, but the vampires were threatened by it. More than that, they were terrified. So I was pretty sure that the Volturi would want me dead once they knew what I was able to do.

And I couldn't spend my days with other vamps either, because of Aro's gift. Aro knows lots of vamps. In fact, he probably knows pretty much all of them. And whenever he had a little reunion with one of his kind, he'd briefly collect all of their thoughts, simply by touching them. Translation: if any vampire knew about me, eventually Aro would know about me.

So I thought I'd make my existence as useful as possible among the humans. I've been on the police force, on SWAT-Teams, and most recently, an anti-terrorism unit. Behind enemy lines, cut off from all contact with base, extremely dangerous. For humans that is. The terrorist's AK 47 didn't pose a real threat to me. For me it was all about whether I felt like dodging a couple of bullets first, or whether I killed the shooter before he could even point his gun in my direction.

I lived among the humans, and yet I couldn't get too close to them. A hug was pretty much all I could stand, the furthest I wanted to test my self-control. I didn't date. Not because I wasn't into girls, but where would it lead? I've tried kissing once, fifty years ago, and it was a close call. Going any further than this would lead to two things: One human girl, dead. And one red-eyed half-vampire who hated himself for the next decade, possibly longer. I was depressed enough with my life as it was, so I didn't need another reason to be miserable.

Also, I had to move every five or so years. These five year periods were very clear chapters in my life. Every time I had to start over, a new chapter would begin.

I had just closed one of those chapters. And I made a mistake I usually don't make. I had made friends. Most of them work related, but I got kind of too close to a girl named Leila. I even said goodbye, something I usually don't. For me, it was easier to let go, I was used to it. She was struggling more with it, and I could tell that she didn't buy my cover story. But it didn't matter. I could have let her in to my secret, but at what a price? Exposing the existence of vampires was all they really cared about. If I told her about vampires, I'd have put her on the same death roll as me.

But despite all that, I still missed her. More than I should. Anyway, it was all over now, because I was now Mark Palmer, twenty-two years old, American Citizen. I aimed for low age this time. Maybe I could stay until Mark Palmer turned thirty.

I was lost in those thoughts and listening to the wind and rain which introduced the soon to follow storm when the motel phone rang. Must be the reception I thought as I answered, hoping they wouldn't evacuate the place.

"Hello?"
"Good evening Mr. Palmer. Or shall I say, Special Agent Schnell?" The voice asked in an Arabic accent.

I though several things as I heard the voice I did not recognize. I got my dad's mind in terms of speed, memory and sharpness. I could process thoughts at a rate much quicker than humans, and follow several trails at the same time.

The voice knew my former alias, knew that I used to be Special Agent Alex Schnell, German intelligence. Did he really know who … or better said, what I was, or did he just get the information out of the guy who made my new passport? And the Arabic accent was weird, too. Maybe somebody I pissed off in Afghanistan? Pakistan? Vampires didn't live in the Middle East. Too much sun for one thing, too superstitious people for another. Plus he didn't have a vampire-like voice, not melodic enough, so I was quite sure he was human.

"Who is this?" I asked.
"My name is not important. What's important is that I have your friend, the very charming Leila. What a lovely girl. It would be too bad if anything happened to her…"
Fuck. Shit. Crap. Why her? The only person on the planet I actually give a shit about. The only way to get some leverage over me. I kept my voice overly cool when I interrupted him.
"Let me guess, you want me in exchange for her and torture me to dead, because I did something that upset you."
"Very good, Agent Schnell. You're really thinking 'schnell', as your name suggests! You should have taken more care of your tracks. Actually, you did excellent work, but Leila here tracked you down to Florida. It was much easier to follow her than it was to follow you."

'Bloody fucking bitch!' I thought. 'I told you to leave me alone, that I had to go, why didn't you just listen just this motherfucking once?' It wasn't normal for me to lose my calm, even in my thoughts. I didn't like that Leila was in trouble because of me.

However, I could fix this. It would be much easier than when I was with the intelligence. They wanted reports. And in those reports I couldn't say "I walked into the terrorist camp, killed everyone in five seconds with my bare hands and left". But this was exactly what I would do this time.

"Where and when?" I asked.
"Tonight. Come to Fort Myers. Start driving now. Don't call your friends." Good. He thought I was human and needed reinforcements.
"There's a hurricane out there, I'm not sure if I'll make it."
"You'll find a possibility, Agent Schnell". The way he said that word, possibility, reminded me of someone. Mohammed Al-Khamis. A right hand of Osama bin Laden. I tracked him down in Pakistan and killed him and his company. Killed was probably the wrong word. Made an example fits it better. This guy was either a close friend or even related to him. Which meant that Leila was in big trouble.
"Let me speak to Leila first!" I demanded. In his plans for tonight, there would be no exchange, of that I was sure. He wanted to kill us both. And he was right, no exchange would take place. Only everything else would go down differently than he expected it. He put Leila on the phone.
"Alex, it's seven of them", she said in German before her voice was cut off. Brave girl. Yet their numbers didn't matter for me. But she didn't know that.

The voice gave me an address, and I agreed to be there.