Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow
Eric
Author's note: This is a companion piece and prequel to 'A Step Too Far.' It takes place six years before the events of its companion. Thank you.
When Eric's life ended, he had no idea that it was happening; it came as a total and complete surprise. When Eric came back from his final deployment, he was ready to settle down. His brother Tyler was a member of the RCMP National Division in Ontario, and Eric already had signed an offer to join the service, after a short period of time off to spend with his wife Gloria. She was waiting for him when he disembarked from his first civilian flight in five years, and the celebrations didn't end until late into the night.
Four weeks later it was nearly time to get back to work. One last weekend before joining Tyler at the National Division. There was only one thing to do: A lavish night out, the full nine yards. Eric and Gloria started the evening with a sumptuous dinner of ouzo shrimp, creamy cheese gnocci, pesto chicken, and steak at the Aroma Meze on Nepean Street. After that came a showing of Gloria's favourite play at the Opera Lyra: The Genetic Opera Live. In honour of the occasion, Eric spent the extra money for a box. After the show, they were walking to their suite at the Albert at Bay hotel, enjoying the cool summer night air, crossing the Mackenzie King bridge when they were attacked by a monster straight out of the darkest parts of fairy tales.
It dropped out of the sky in front of them, black ichor dripping from the rubbery gray skin that covered its gaunt emaciated body. It stood seven feet tall on its hind legs, batlike wings raised off of its shoulder blades, exaggerated talons hanging at the end of its overlong arms. The belly was bulbous, a grotesque mockery of that most obvious sign of new life being borne. But all of that...all of that
spectacle was as nothing when they looked at its eyes.
The eyes are the windows of the soul, it is said, and these were windows to a place of impenetrable darkness, without pupil or white to them. There was nothing but bleak blackness gazing back at them. Eric found himself somehow drawn into them...a sensation of falling...and it all faded to black. The last thing he recalled about that night, and it was some years before he could recall anything, was surprisingly throaty laughter mocking him.
The next morning Eric woke late to the sound of an enthusiastic Gloria breaking her fast. He walked into the dining room of their suite, and was greeted by a sight reminiscent of an all-you-can-eat buffet. Empty plates and bowls were strewn about, covering every horizontal surface, and Gloria was bent over the table shoveling bacon and eggs benedict from her plate to her mouth. He smiled when he saw her.
"How's the room service?"
She lowered the plate, and pushed it away with a frown. "It's good, but I can't seem to stop eating. I'm just so hungry!" Gloria looked up at the ceiling, sighed and pulled the plate back to finish off the plate before setting it aside again with a moue of frustration. Eric looked at her for a moment, reveling in the way the light from the window made her light brown hair look like a halo around her head, and her skin shine. "I love you." Eric said quietly, putting his left hand on her shoulder. Gloria reached up and took his hand with her own. "You're a beautiful liar." He leaned in and planted a kiss on the top of her head, pulling her toward the suite's bedroom and the king-sized bed therein. "Let me prove it to you."
Eric closed the car door heavily, and trudged toward the house. Today had been a hard day; a group of desperate tweakers had taken a bus full of children as hostages and issued their demands. Well, demand, singular: For their dealer to give them free meth for the rest of their lives. They refused to believe the standard lies, and a breach was necessary. Eric had to kill two of the HTs. Right now all he wanted was a long shower, a cold beer and to hold Gloria and have her tell him it would be ok. If she was awake, that is. Ever since that last weekend before he started with the National Division two weeks ago, she had been getting more and more distant; often not coming to bed until after hew was already asleep. She also had been nervous, especially when her new friend came to visit.
That there was a new friend of Gloria's was unmistakeable. Three wine glasses were in the sink after every visit, and three chairs were always pulled out. There were two strange things about each visit: Gloria always locked herself in her exercise room afterwards, with the music up loud; and Eric couldn't remember anything about the visitor, except that it was a woman. Years later, that would be one of the things he berated himself over.
As Eric reached the door, he noticed that there was a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper folded into thirds taped to the outside of the front door. He took a moment to open it, thinking it must be from one of the neighbours, probably complaining about his lawn-mowing at 6 am on Saturday. It read:
"Eric, I love you. Please understand. That thing that attacked us that night, is trying to make me into a monster. She wants me to kill you, to drink your blood, to make you the first person...I'm so sorry. I won't, I can't do that. I swore to love you to the end, and I have. Please remember the way I was, and not like this. Don't come into the house, please. I love you so much. Gloria"
Eric dropped the keys trying to unlock the door, finally kicked it down and ran into the house. She had done it with the revolver he had given her for self defence, through her right eye straight into the brain behind. The body was in a chair at the kitchen table, a pool of blood drying on the oak top and also on the tiles below. Eric ran into the room, grabbing Gloria's body and bearing it to the floor and holding it close, as if he could stave off death itself by the force of his will, wash away the fact of what had happened with the steady stream of his tears.
Months passed, and Eric was cleared of all complicity in Gloria's suicide. He was consigned to desk work anyway, since the psychiatrists refused to clear him for posessing firearms for either service or personal use. This bleak existence continued until one day a man in a dark suit was waiting when Eric walked out to his car. "Mr. Becker? My name is Karson, William Karson. I have some things to tell you in private. It's about your late wife. Mr. Becker? Please, wait up!" Eric had started walking away as soon as he heard the word 'wife'.
"Get away from me."
"But Mr. Becker, I can tell you what killed her! -ug!"
That last inarticulate sound was what came out of the suited man's mouth when Eric abruptly turned and planted one hand into the suited man's solar plexus, and followed up with a vice-like grip to his throat. "You have fifteen seconds to convince me not to kill you" he said, in a dangerously quiet voice "I will start counting when I release you. Ready? Good." Eric released the man's throat.
"Mr. Becker, your wife was killed by a vampire of the red court She was half-turned, and the thirst was what caused her suicide I understand that you might be reluctant to believe that they exist, and I can prove it to you if you come with me tonight on a raid to the Buffalo restaurant please don't kill me?"
Eric took a moment to consider. This fool would be the work of only a moment, but what's the point? What's the point of any of it? "Fine. I'll see what you have to show me. Then I'll decide what to do." William Karson sagged back in relief. "What size body armour do you wear, Eric?"
The raid went off without a hitch, as only a well planned operation can. In the hour before dusk, a group of four men and five women wearing dark tactical armour descended on the Buffalo Restaurant on Queen Street East.
They were armed with tranquilizers, which they used on the few humans inside the dive bar. What followed looked to Eric like nothing more than the members of the strike team looking for secret passages, or hidden bunkers. He had participated in several searches like that during his time with the JTF-2. After a few minutes, and a whispered "Found it," the team descended fifteen steps down through a trapdoor behind the bar into a chamber made of stone, with a huge four-post bed, glazed tile floor with a drain installed near the east wall, and the body of a human person hanging from the wall via manacles attached to his wrists on the same wall.
The thing in the room that really drew Eric's attention was the creature on the bed. It was magnificent in its hideousness. Just looking at it made a part of Eric's mind scream out to look away, to run, to escape. More than that, seeing it brought back a scrap of memory he'd never realised he didn't have: In a flash he was on the Mackenzie King bridge, seeing a set of black-on-black eyes...
When awareness returned to Eric, he was stabbing the thing on the bed over and over again with his combat knife, stabbing it with so much force that he was impaling it to the mattress, and hitting the frame below with each stroke. Eventually, he couldn't attack any more. He collapsed to the floor beside the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. "It took her." He whispered between racking sobs, "It took her."
Eric started training with the Venatori Umbrorum after that. They were a society of monster hunters, trained to track and defeat all manner of faeries, monsters, vampires, ghouls, etc. The thing under the Buffalo Restaurant was a red court vampire. Unlike the black court, which were essentially the vampires of Bram Stoker that everyone hears tales of, the red court were bat-like creatures that could cover themselves in a suit of human skin, making themselves appear like regular humans to get close to victims.
The red court propagate by an infection, sharing their tainted blood with a victim to grant them the thirst. Once the thirst took root, it was permanent. If ever the victim took a life and fed, they would become a full red court vampire, beyond all redemption. Once granted access to Venatori resources, Eric confirmed that the vampire under the Buffalo was in a different city at the time Gloria was attacked, and couldn't possibly have been the one that infected her.
That news had an upside and a downside: The downside was that the creature he needed to kill could be anywhere in the world. The upside was that Eric would have an opportunity to make it suffer when it died.
Besides, the Venatori Umbrorum didn't seem to think he was to crazy to be allowed firearms.