NOW
Charlie awoke with a start, realizing that he had dosed off while reminiscing about the past. Dawn was creeping over the horizon; patches of fog were floating above the forest floor. He got up and retrieved his water canteen and a couple of cans of Vienna sausages from his saddlebags on his bike. He came back and sat down on his bedroll again to eat his breakfast.
With that done, he opened his duffle bag and changed into a clean shirt and socks. He then put his boots back on and tied everything back down onto his motorcycle.
Once he was back on the main road, he let the engine noise of his bike, and the wind in his face envelop him. He thought back again to his time in New York.
THENCharlie had been working at the club for the better part of two months. He had decided that for whatever reason, the vamps were drawn to the club. They were averaging two to three vamps a night. Luckily though, he hadn't had any wendigos to deal with.
On his nights off, Charlie had been doing some patrolling and investigating. His adventures had led him to the underbelly of the city. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that parts of the city were a hell dimension, and not a part of the Earth that he knew and lived on.
He had even stopped a few more conventional bad guys. He had thwarted several muggings, and even stopped a rape. He had to be careful with these guys though. It was easy to forget that they weren't a bad guy that he could kill, like vampires or wendigos.
Charlie was now walking silently down a back alley. He had heard a few vamps discussing some sort of gathering in this part of town before he had made his presence known and dusted them. He hadn't had any luck finding a gathering though.
I'm going to have to learn to beat answers out of 'em before I dust 'em. Charlie thought.
At that moment, a man walked into the alley behind Charlie. The man was wearing faded bellbottoms and a blue shirt with a wide lapel. The man hurried his gate a little to catch up to Charlie. When he was walking behind him, he sniffed the air a bit.
"You're one of them aren't you?" The newcomer asked.
"Come again?" Charlie asked, giving the man a weary look.
"The demon in human skin. The one's that have been running things. I never met one before, but you don't smell human, and you're not the slayer." The man said in a jovial tone.
"Sure." Charlie said, having to fight the urge to dust the vamp right here. Answers then dust. Charlie thought to himself.
"So, what are you guys going to do with all of the vampires you're gathering tonight? Word is you have work for us." The vamp said looking to Charlie for answers.
Charlie raised an eyebrow at the man. This idiot is going to lead me right to this gathering. He thought. "You'll just have to wait and see." He said aloud.
The vamp shrugged and continued walking. He talked Charlie's ear off as they walked. They eventually came to a, three story, warehouse. "There's no secret knock is there?" The vamp asked.
Charlie gave him a hard look. "Knock and find out."
The vamp looked a little nervous now. He looked from Charlie to the door a few times, and finally gave a hesitant rap on the metal door. There was silence for a few minutes, and then the door opened.
Charlie's blood immediately began to boil. He couldn't explain how, but he could usually tell if someone was a wendigo when he was standing next to one. And the man blocking the doorway was definitely the wendigo. Charlie was using every bit of self-control he could muster to not gut the wendigo where he stood.
When the man moved to the side and ushered them in, he was glad he had controlled himself. He could have handled the vamp and the wendigo at the door, and even the two other wendigos in the front room. But, even though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, he knew he wouldn't have been able to take them and the hundred or so vamps gathered in the large, central area of the warehouse.
Charlie moved to the back of the crowd, trying not to draw attention to himself. The three wendigos from the front room came in and took positions around the room. Another man came out onto a platform that was situated towards the front of the room.
Vamp or wendigo I wonder. Charlie thought looking towards the man on the stage. The man was wearing a dark, olive colored suit with a tan shirt and olive tie.
"Gentlemen." The man in the suit said loudly, letting the acoustics carry his voice across the warehouse. "I'm glad you could all make it. I know you're all here under the pretense that we have work for you."
He paused to look over the nods of the crowd. "It's not so much work we're going to offer you, more of a revolution." The vamps in the crowd looked confused, as the man continued. "You have always had the means to control this city, and now, you have the leadership to provide the motivation. If you decide to follow us, we can lead you towards an age where we can rule this city, and then this continent, and finally, the world." With this, the vamps roared in excitement.
"I'm glad to see this appeals to you." The man continued once the noise had subsided. "Everyone return here in two nights and assignments will be handed out." The man stepped off of the stage and exited through a side door, the wendigos followed him.
The vampires talked among themselves for a bit and started slowly filtering out the doors. Charlie made his way towards the door the man and the wendigos had used. The only thing he saw when he got into the alley that the door led to was a silver Hummer with tinted windows. The rear driver's side window came down.
The man in the suit was looking directly at Charlie. "Come." He instructed Charlie, with a wave of his hand. Charlie made another glance around the alley, not spotting anything, he started towards the Hummer.
As Charlie stepped closer to the man, his suspicions were confirmed, the man was a wendigo, and whatever sixth sense allowed him to identify wendigos went wild. He started to grow uneasy.
"Relax, warrior." The man said from his seat. "If I had wanted to harm you today, you would have been eviscerated in the warehouse." Seeing the look of surprise on Charlie's face, the man continued. "Oh don't look so surprised. You can sense us, is it not plausible that one as old and powerful as I would be able to sense a Totem Warrior when he is in relatively close proximity to one?"
Charlie's features went from surprised to angry. "I'm going to kill you."
The man laughed heartedly. "We all have our day warrior. But today is not it for either of us." With that, the man rolled up his window and the silver Hummer eased out of the alleyway and onto the street.
Well, that could have gone a lot worse. Charlie thought.
The next night Charlie was working the door to the club. They hadn't had any vamps yet tonight, but Charlie knew that it was only a matter of time. Truth to be told, Charlie looked forward to the nightly dusting, even if it was only one or two a night.
They had, so far, had the normal crowd come in. All different sorts of people, from all different walks of life. But mostly the already half-drunk college club goers. Then a group came in that aroused Charlie's suspicions.
There were five guys and one girl. All appeared to be in their mid twenties. The guys all wore pressed button up shirts and pressed khaki slacks. The girl wore a tight pair of blue jeans and a blue and black-stripped sweater. And they all appeared to be sober.
This was definitely not the normal crowd for this club. They were cleaner, more alert, and a lot more sober than the usual crowd. But it wasn't entirely unheard of for lost frat boys and sorority sisters to stumble upon clubs such as these. Charlie had the feeling though, that these weren't lost preps. They paid their admission and started mingling into the crowd.
Charlie's first thought was that maybe they were vampires, but he didn't think so. And they weren't wendigos, he would have been able to tell that when they walked past him. Charlie finally decided that he was just being paranoid and turned his attention back to the people coming in the door.
A few minutes later, three men entered together. Charlie immediately suspected them to be vampires. Their skin was pale, and their clothes were about 10 years out of date.
Charlie couldn't do anything yet though. He had already had an embarrassing experience when he attacked a suspected vamp that had turned out to just be a Goth kid. The suspected vamps paid their admission and mingled into the crowd.
Wanting to keep close tabs on the suspected vamps, Charlie called another bouncer to watch the door, while he roamed the dance floor. He spotted one of the clean-cut kids again. The guy had what looked like a cell phone, with a speaker running to his ear.
The guy was holding the phone about chest level, staring intently at the screen, pushing a number every now and then. He suddenly turned and looked from the phone to Charlie. He then said something into the phone, and seconds later, the other guys and the girl were standing beside him. They said something to each other, but Charlie couldn't hear what it was over the deafening noise of the music.
Suddenly Charlie heard Kevin in his earpiece. "Fang fight by the first floor bar, Charlie." The other bouncers had quit trying to interfere with vamp fights on the nights Charlie was working.
"On my way." Charlie replied as he made his way through the crowd to the bar. He was expecting to see the three suspected vamps when he arrived, but there were two different vamps that he must have missed coming in.
They were trading blows at a blinding pace, not caring who or what got in their way. Charlie waded into the fray, grabbing both vamps by their necks. His fingers almost touched, as he wrapped his hands around their necks. He slammed their heads together with all of his might.
The one in his left hand must have had its spinal cord severed from the impact, because Charlie was now holding a fist full of dust. The other was unconscious. Charlie pulled the staked from his back pocket and dusted him.
When Charlie went back to the dance floor, he couldn't locate the clean-cut kids. He did, however, notice the three suspected vamps heading discreetly towards the exit. The rest of the night passed quietly.
The next morning, well morning for Charlie, it was almost noon; Charlie took the elevator up to the first floor and exited the club through the side door. He blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to the harsh sunlight, after exiting the dark club.
He put one arm, then the other through his brown leather jacket, and then started walking down the alley. As he drew near the end of the alley, two guys stepped into the mouth of the alley from the street. Charlie then heard more movement behind him. He slightly cocked his head; there was another guy and a girl behind him. It then dawned on his that these were the same people he had seen in the club the night before.
"Mr. Proudstar." One of the men at the end of the alley stated. He and the man beside him walked slowly towards Charlie. "How'd you do it?"
"Do what?" Charlie replied in a low voice.
"That question has one of two answers." Said the speaker in front of him. "We figure that you're either a demon in human form who has developed an airtight human identity, or someone who has been using the occult to augment himself. Either way, my question still stands. How did you do it?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but you're wrong all the way around." Charlie replied, doing his best to keep his eyes and ears on all of his unnamed visitors.
"That's where you're the one who's wrong." Chimed in the female standing behind him. "You are the kind of thing that is exactly our business."
"So now I'm a thing?" Charlie asked, turning so that his sides were to the two groups, instead of one group to the front and one to the back.
"As far as we know." Said the man who had spoke earlier. "You're not offering a lot of explanations here."
"I don't owe you an explanation, or anything else." Charlie said looking back to the man.
"Again, you're wrong." Said the woman. "This is a free country, for humans. Not demons."
"I am human." Charlie snapped back, not liking where this conversation was heading. "Just because I could kick all of your asses without breaking a sweat, does not make me un-human."
"That's not what our experts and instruments say." The woman said.
"Luckily for you though, our superiors think you could be useful." The man stated. "You have two choices, join us or be detained."
"Not interested in joining anything." Charlie said, widening his stance. "You the ones who are going to try and take me in?"
"Sure are." The woman said as all five of them started closing in.
The man standing next to the woman, a well-built man with a red flattop, was the first to get into Charlie's striking distance. Charlie lashed out with a sidekick, catching the redhead in the stomach, sending him flying down the alley. Charlie was sure that he at least broke a rib.
Charlie then whirled and grabbed one the men who had been silent through the whole exchange by the shirt. He picked him up over his head and threw him into the other silent man. Both men rolled into the alley wall hard enough to bring a white dust out of the bricks.
Charlie was struck in the kidneys from behind. He reached over his shoulder and grabbed the woman by the hair. He flipped her onto the ground in front of him. He could feel the battle rage building inside him. It was a rage that usually only rose when he was in an emotional battle, or fighting a tough wendigo.
Forgetting all about self-control, Charlie brought his leg up to stomp on the woman's neck. He heard a yell from in front of him, and looked up just in time to see the male speaker tackle him. He hadn't realized until the man was on top of him just how big he was. He wasn't muscled up, he had more of an athletic build, but he was very tall. But not near as tall as Charlie.
The man punched Charlie in the face three times before Charlie could register what was happening. It was the hardest Charlie had ever been hit by a human. Charlie could feel blood in his mouth and running out of one nostril.
Maybe this guy isn't human. Charlie thought.
Charlie shoved his legs up, sending the man flying down the alley. Charlie quickly got to his feet, and saw the man roll into a combat stance from his flight. The two men stared each other down for a minute. Then they both moved to close the distance at the same time.
Charlie threw a jab that the man deftly deflected with an open hand, and answered with a roundhouse punch aimed at Charlie's head. Charlie grabbed the fist in his palm and turned the mans arm around his back, hooking another arm around the man's neck.
"As I said, I'm not interested in anything you're offering." Charlie almost whispered into the man's ear. Charlie then put pressure on the man's neck with his arm. Charlie waited until the man had stopped moving, and then let him slide to the ground.
Charlie checked to see if the man was still alive. Satisfied that he was, Charlie quickly reached into the man's back pants pocket and retrieved his wallet. Charlie took a quick glance at the others from the group. They all seemed to be ok, the woman was conscious, but looked groggy. Charlie quickly made his way out of the alley, and lost himself in the crowd of pedestrians.
