-1The wind whipped around me tearing at my jacket and try to throw me from the bike. I had my arms wrapped tightly around Dad's waist trying my best to hold on to the roaring machine between our legs. Adrenaline coursed through my body and with every mile that disappeared between us and our destination I fought down a rabidly encroaching attack of the hiccups. Dad once had told me that when he was younger he would get the hiccups before every fight, now I wished he hadn't because it seemed the condition was hereditary. Instead of succumbing to nerves I made a mental inventory of my weapons, I had two .25's under my arms, a chain blade on my belt, and a small arsenal of silver stakes hidden all over my body. I begged Mom to let me borrow her UV Arc, but that wasn't going to happen. It was only due to a small miracle and Blade that I was even aloud to come hunting with Dad tonight. Dad motioned with his arm telling me that we were close to our target, I tensed slightly but forced myself to relax, we had entered a nearly deserted part of town where all of the streetlights were broken and no lights shown threw the windows of the empty shops. Finally the cycle began to slow down and I could here the sound of music. The music had to be coming from the vampire den, the rest of the place was cleared out. We skidded to a stop in front of the only source of light for blocks, a bar called Talos Taverns. This was a definitely a vampire hangout, Dad told me about his ex Danika who had turned him years ago.
"Alright, Andrew, stay with me, and shoot anything that tries to touch you…especially dogs." I could feel a shudder go down him as he said that last word. Nodding I climbed down off the cycle and pulled at the legs of my jeans, my butt was numb from the long ride astride the motorcycle and my legs were slightly bowed, stretching I put one hand under my jacket ready to pull my gun. Dad headed into the bar and I followed him trying to calm my nerves, it wasn't this bad last time, but last time I had been alone, this time there was someone here watching me to see how I did. I expected him to go in guns blazing but instead he made his way to the bar and sat down. The barkeep came over and looked impatiently at him, he glanced at me and sneered.
"What'll you have?"
"Have you seen Danica Talos around?" Dad asked, I tried to hide the surprise on my face, what was going on.
"All the Talos' were killed during Daystar, if I ever get my hands on those Night Stalkers I'll kill them myself." This time I had to suppress the urge to gulp.
"You ever seen a Night Stalker?" Dad asked innocently.
"Yeah, it's been years though, the girl was pretty hot though, I'd like to bite her." The barkeep said grinning showing two long fangs. I went to draw my gun but Dad was quicker, he pulled his Beef Eater from under his coat and fired it into the vampires face. The bloodsucker screamed and grabbed his face as he started to ash. Turning I saw the whole bar looking at us bearing their teeth.
"It's the fucking Night Stalkers get them." One shouted, suddenly a mob of suck puppies was boiling across the bar towards us. I pulled the .25's from under my coated and fired at everything moving, I didn't have time to watch them ash, as soon as one went down I had to shoot another. As many as I shot they were getting too close one grabbed my arm so I shot him with the other gun. They were too close to use the guns so I stowed them and stomped my feet against the ground, I heard a 'shink' sound as the knife at the toe of my boot flashed out. I kicked at what ever flesh was in reach and was reworded with the sound of screams as parts of the advancing vampires fell away an ashed, but still they were coming too close for kicks to connect well. I had lost sight of Dad but I could tell from the flashes of light in a far corner he was doing his part. It was time for my last ditch weapon before bringing out the stakes, twitching my wrist I felt the silver knife sheathed there fly out. While I had been searching for Dad a vampire who looked only a few years older than me had drawn up within a foot of me, before I could kick or stab he grabbed me by the shoulders forcing my arms to my sides.
"Oh, you're a cute one. Maybe I'll keep you for a toy after wards, don't worry this won't hurt a bit." He said moving one of his hands and using it to force my head to the side.
"This will." I said lashing out with my free hand, the silver knife connected with his crotch. He screamed in agony before he ashed, the other vampires who had been watching this backed away shielding themselves, this gave me just enough room to pull out the guns and begin firing again. They went down in rapid succession as a swung the gun at whichever monster was closest. I thought that I was home free when all of a sudden I heard the familiar click of an empty cartridge, I was out of ammo, but not out of luck. Pulling my chain blade from my belt I slung it at the farthest, he began to ash and I swung the handle violently catching the surrounding vampires with the silver wire attaching the knife blade to the handle. The room was filled with ash, and I could not see a square inch of clean floor, Dad stood across the room with his gun ready to fire, I stood at the bar will the chain blade ready to throw, but the place was utterly quite, even the music had stopped, I could see why too, the speaker was riddled with bullets.
"You alright?" He asked starting across the room.
"Yeah, you?"
"Yeah, they didn't touch me." Suddenly I felt the urge to run, dodging and rolling I saw Dad fire at where I had been. Glancing up I saw a vampire ash as it lunged at the place where I had been seconds before. This time we thoroughly checked the bar including the back rooms before we left. I was a little shaky if I hadn't moved that vampire would have drug me behind the bar and done god knows what, but I don't know what caused me to want to move. I was just standing there when I felt something really wrong, I asked Dad about it as we drove more slowly towards home.
"I've seen Blade to that, stand really still then be ready for something happened. I always though he was listening or smelling for things, but maybe not. You're not a Daywalker though, so I guess it doesn't really matter."
"I don't know, have you ever really wandered how being a vampire affected you?"
"Well, yeah, I figured I might be sterile. But Blade told me the vampires can have babies, he had a thing for a vampire princess once, I don't think that me being a cured vampire would cause you to turn into a Daystalker anyway, you don't crave blood like Blade does, so you're definitely not like Blade."
"I know that, I would know if I was like Blade, I would have pinned Zoe by now."
"But I don't know maybe it changed you a little, and that little passed down to me." By now we were on the outskirts of the suburbs and Dad gunned the engine in a hurry to get home. We stopped in the driveway and I went into the house while Dad stowed the motorcycle in the garage. Mom who was sitting close to the door jumped up and began looking me over searching for bites or broke bones.
"I'm okay, they never touched me." I said allowing her to finish her inspection.
"You have bruises on your arms." She said lifting my shirt and looking at my arms near my shoulders. That must have been where the horny vampire grabbed me.
"Its okay, I gave him the circumcision of death before he could bite me." I said shrugging. Shaking her head she dragged me towards the kitchen and sat me down in a chair. She fixed me a glass of milk and sat down across from me. She stared at me until I began to feel uncomfortable, I picked up the milk and took a sip.
"Most men won't do that, what did he do to you." She asked, I nearly choked on my milk.
"The vampire didn't molest me, Mom, he probably wanted to but I killed him, everything's okay."
"Okay, if you're sure." She said gazing at me concernedly.
"I'm fine, there was one weird thing though."
"Oh, really?" Slowly I explained to her about the weird feeling I got just before the vampire attacked. "I get that feeling sometimes too, I don't know where it comes from, or how we do it, but it works." Getting up she ruffled my hair and kissed me on the forehead then headed up the stairs. I was far too wired to go to sleep so I went into the living room and turned on the TV. I was channel surfing when I heard the growl of a motorcycle outside, the cycle died away and I heard the garage door open, a few minutes later Zoe came in and sat down on the couch beside me.
"How'd your first official hunt go, Squirt?" She asked me putting her feet on the coffee table. I told her all about it and she nodded in the appropriate places and got a wicked smile on her face when I told her about what I did to the horny vampire. "I can remember the first time a vampire came on to me, I sliced him in half with the UV Arc." She said with a nostalgic smile on her face. We watched TV for a while until the adrenaline drained from my system and I started to get sleepy. Yawning I waved goodnight to Zoe and headed up the stairs. After a night of ass-kickery I was exhausted and flopped onto my bed without undressing. I fell asleep before I even rolled over.
My dreams were troubled and I tossed and turned all night, flashes of that one vampire haunted my dreams. Near six I woke with a yelp, I couldn't quite remember what I had been dreaming but I was bathed in a cold sweat and my hand was pressed to my neck, pulling it away I was relieved to see that it had no blood on it. Apparently I had dreamed that Mr. Horny had bitten me and turned me into his toy. I was wide awake and I knew that it would be time to get up before I fell back asleep so I wandered down the stairs and fixed myself a weak cup of coffee. I fell asleep at the kitchen table with the coffee still clutched in my fingers, apparently I had underestimated my ability to fall asleep. Half an hour later Mom shook my shoulder waking me, the look of concern was back on her face. I shook my head and slurped down the rest of my now cold coffee. I was fixing myself another cup when a bellow echoed up from that basement.
"What was that?" I asked Mom trying not to drop the cup.
"Zoe brought home a dog."
"She
knows Dad's afraid of dogs, why'd she do it?"
"Fuck
me…SIDEWAYS!" Came from the basement.
"It's a vampire dog, she wants to study it."
"And that would be the reason Dad's afraid of dogs." I said trying to work out the reasoning in my head, fortunately I didn't have too.
"A dog vampire is easier to control than a human vampire, we can give it some of Blade's old intravenous serum. Besides Hannibal was half afraid of dogs before he had his run-in with the vampire pooches."
"Is this a Pomeranian, he really hates Pomeranians."
"No, it's a Chihuahua."
"A vampire Chihuahua?"
"His name is Chupasangre, bloodsucker, Chupa for short."
"We are vampire hunters, and we have a freaking vampire Chihuahua?!"
"Watch you language, Andrew Whistler King, beside Chupa will be invaluable to Zoe's research."
"Zoe's doing research now?"
"She's trying to find away to reverse the mutation that turned all the vampires into Drake wannabes."
"She know how?"
"What do you think she's going to college for? She's following in Sommerfield's footsteps. Maybe she'll find a way to reverse the damage that we did."
"Hadn't one of us better go rescue Chupa from Dad?" I said knowing the hell that would go down if Dad killed Zoe's guinea pig.
"More like save Dad from Chupa, go bring him up here before he has a stroke." Nodding I left the kitchen, and walked down the stairs into the basement. I found Dad hunkered down against the wall containing all our guns staring wide-eyed at a small dog sitting in a cage on the other wall.
"Dog…vampire dog. Fucking vampire Chihuahua!" He shouted pointing towards the cage. Chupa sat up and yawned his lower jaw splitting open and a weird sucker thingy coming out. No wonder Dad didn't like dogs, that thing was nasty in a cool sort of way, and he was cute when he kept his mouth shut. I placed myself between the cage and Dad, grabbing his arm I pulled him up from the floor and pushed him up the stairs, he gibbered something unintelligible but climbed the stairs. Turning I went over to the cage where Chupa lay looking at me, as I neared I could hear his stomach rumble, I wondered how long it had been since Zoe fed him. I could give him the injection of serum, I'd seen Blade do it thousands of times. Picking up the little aerosol syringe I opened the cage. Chupa stood with his tail between his legs growling at me. His skin rippled and instantly spines popped out all over him. Now that was really cool.
"It's okay, little dude, I won't hurt you I just want to fee you." Carefully I reached around the spines and scratched his spiny little ears. His spiky tale wagged and his skin ripples again, he was one more a normal looking Chihuahua, until he opened his mouth and licked me with that sucker thing. Turning his head I but the syringe over his jugular and pulled the plunger, he whimpered, but didn't move. Patting him on the head I closed the door and replaced the vial in the air injector. The little dog was pretty cool, and he didn't seem to be as dangerous as a human vampire, maybe I could work out some way for him to be allowed of the cage. I walked up the stairs and found Mom and Dad sitting at the kitchen table. He was muttering something about 'freaking vampire dogs' while Mom pet him like a child trying to calm him down, Chupa definitely wouldn't be allowed out of the cage for a while.
"What were you doing down there, Andy?" Mom asked not turning from Dad.
"Feeding, Chupa, he's actually kind of cool." She turned and looked at me like I was crazy.
"Oh great, I've got one having a freak out over the dog, and the other….Jesus." She muttered continuing her ministrations to Dad. I fixed a cup of warm milk and handed it to him then sat down at the empty seat thinking, if they couldn't find a fix, or if they did, they would get rid of Chupa.
"You know he's really tame, he didn't even try to bite me." I said looking at Mom. "He even licked me." Mom jumped and turned to look at my her eyes wide.
"It licked you?" She said sounding wild, Dad seemed to snap out of it and was watching me wildly too.
"Yeah, what's the problem?" I asked suddenly very confused.
"Andy, vampires carry the virus in their saliva. And the Reapers, who had jaw structures like Chupa's, carried the virus on their sucker!" She said jumping up from the table and starting to look me over.
"The saliva has to mix with blood to transmit the virus right?" I asked still not worried.
"Well he didn't break my skin, he just licked me like any dog would, Mom, I really don't think he's dangerous, especially if we keep him on the serum." I said showing her the place where he had licked me, the skin was whole.
"We're still gonna test your blood when Zoe gets home, but you're probably right, if I thought Chupa was dangerous I wouldn't have let Zoe keep him."
"Do you think we could figure out a way to make the serum into dog biscuits, the injector hurt him." I asked trying to figure out a way around causing the little dog pain.
"Honey, he's a vampire dog, don't get too attached." Mom said sitting back down.
"Why not, we're not going to hurt him are we?" I asked suddenly worried for Chupa's safety.
"Not if we can help it, but reverting him back to Canis Nocturna might kill him, we don't know."
"Mom, we can't kill him, he's a good dog."
"Andrew, you didn't even like the idea in the first place."
"Yeah, but I've met him now, he's cool I don't wanna kill him."
"Well we'll see honey." Dad got up and left the room muttering something about crazy teenagers. Mom started to make breakfast and I went into the living room to watch tv with Hannah. She sat on the couch with Chupa asleep in her lap, while she watched the television she stroked him absent mindedly.
"You're not afraid of him?" I asked scratching his ears.
"Why should I be, he's just a puppy." She said looking at me. "Look he even licked me, she said holding out her hand, like mine it was fine, not a single hole in the skin."
"Good, you can help me make sure nothing bad happens to him."
"Yeahp." She said turning back to the television.
