For my sister, happy belated birthday.

"In battle, if you make your opponent flinch, you have already won."

Chapter 5

DUTTON

The boardwalk was like a living thing, the throng moving constantly, without purpose. Like the blood running through his veins they did so without thought or passion, seemingly drawn to the lights and the beating heart of the boardwalk simply because they were there. Like a herd of zebra crowding around a watering hole, these people were unaware of the predators that waited for them in the dark, but fortunately for them, the only thing hunting tonight was him.

Everywhere he looked there were signs of the things he sought. There were the ones only he recognized, and then there were the ones that even the civilians could see, layers of missing persons flyers, each one older than the last, dating as far back as the nineteen sixties that he could see. The distinct absence of security guards on the main thoroughfare felt pointed, almost intentional, but still, he thought, as a young boy ran into him, then past him, mothers didn't cling to their children. They left them defenseless, foolishly believing that they would be safe despite the fact that there were so many children on that board, as if the things he sought had any such scruples. They had no souls, why should they have morals?

A woman, a girl even, she couldn't have been too far away from eighteen if she was a day, wearing a one piece bathing suit under a pair of cutoff jeans, pulled her child out of his way and against her body. The look she gave him said that she understood, instinctively, that he was dangerous. He wondered how many times she had unknowingly felt the shadow, metaphorically speaking, of a vampire fall on her and felt safe. It didn't matter. He wasn't here for her, or her boy, who she held tightly against her as he passed by them, and moreover, she wasn't wrong. He was dangerous. Whether he was more or less so than the creatures he hunted was a matter of perspective. To a fly, a spider was a monster. It made no difference that he was physically weaker and slower than the animals he was after. Most hunters could say the same. Every vampire he had ever killed was stronger than him, and faster than him, and it had made no difference for them in the end either.

This time, it would make no difference either.

A bell rang as he passed by a shooting gallery game, deafening the man so that he barely heard the teenager with the uneven facial hair ask him if he wanted to try his luck. The game was made almost entirely of vintage metal painted green. The targets were all shaped like animals, a bottom row of slow moving yellow ducks, a stationary row of white hawks at the top of the machine, and a rotating circle of white rabbits that folded down at irregular intervals to make them more difficult to hit.

Dutton looked at the air rifle the teenager was holding, then down at the thick black watch band on the same wrist. The watch was turned around so he couldn't see the face. "What time is it?" He asked. The teenager blinked, either because he was confused by the question or surprised by his accent, either way, the trouth mouth the boy was giving him didn't answer his question.

"What?" The teenager asked.

"The time," he said again.

The teenager moved the air rifle to his left hand and looked at his watch. "Seven-thirty, why?"

Dutton glanced at the setting sun out beyond the edge of the boardwalk's glow, the pink-orange sky was already turning inky blue at the corners. The sun would be down in less than thirty minutes. There was a grace period after vampires woke up where they were, besides when they were sleeping, at their most vulnerable, before they fed, but it was also during this time when they were the most dangerous, while they were out hunting, like him. There was no such thing as an even playing field with vampires, but it would be longer than a half hour before they came here. They wouldn't sleep closer than thirty-minutes away from the boardwalk, no matter how young and stupid they were. No vampire would lay his head down anywhere someone like him could come wandering in off the street to take it off. No, they would be far away from this much light and noise.

Butchers didn't sleep in the same pasture as their cattle.

He glanced back at the teenager to see that he was still staring at him. "I'll play."

The teenager handed him the air rifle wordlessly. Dutton carefully lowered his duffel bag to the ground and grabbed the rifle. He raised it surely and took aim at the first white rabbit.

"Winner," the teenager said, with an upward inflection at the end like he was asking a question. He didn't react otherwise, not even to take the air rifle back from Dutton, who carefully set it down on the front of the machine and bent slightly at the knees to pick up his duffel bag. The teenager numbly reached up and dragged a large, cheap stuffed animal off the shelf behind him and all but threw it at Dutton, who caught it by pinning it against his chest with his arm when it hit him. "Are you in the army or something?" The teenager asked quietly. "That was amazing."

"Once." Dutton said, tucking the stiff toy under his arm so he could hand the teenager a few neatly folded dollar bills. "Have a safe night now."

"You too, man." The teenager gave him a curious look, but said nothing else.

"I intend to." Dutton said mildly.

Even with the sky growing darker at the edges by the minute, it took almost no time at all to retrace his steps, and even less effort to find the young mother again, and the child who was waiting in line for the carousel behind her, albeit far less patiently. Without stopping, he set the bear down next to the little boy, leaning it against the child's small legs, and patted the top of his head like the banister of a staircase as he passed them without a word.

The night was still unbearably hot, even as the sun began to set in earnest, and the wood beneath his feet, still damp from the afternoon thunderstorm, gave off the scent of a rotting stump.

As the sun finally set, at nearly eight p.m. on the dot, more people came up from the beach bringing the smell of saltwater and sand with them, leaving the wooden benches near the exits to the beach empty for him to sit.

He put his duffel bag on the ground between his legs but didn't push it under the bench with his feet, sitting sideways on the edge of the seat so he could watch the beach and the boardwalk simultaneously. Closer to the water, it was cooler out, and the sweat on his temples, far from drying on its own, tickled the fine hairs along the edge of his scalp. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and looked out among the people and the lights, but not impatiently. He may not have as long as the things he was waiting for, but he still had all night.

Dutton believed in many things: God, vampires, but he had never considered fate, beyond an extension of the Lord's will, to be one of them until he saw Raymond again. It had been decades since he saw Raymond last, even longer since he saw him as a boy, and while time had been noticeably kinder to one of them, fate had not been so to Raymond.

It wasn't Raymond that brought him to Santa Carla, but he refused to believe it was a coincidence that his and Raymond's arrival at this town should coincide so if it wasn't God's will.

Dutton believed in many things: God, vampires, fate, but not coincidence.

If Raymond was here, his reasons for being so could not be so very different from his own. Raymond was careful, there was a good reason their paths hadn't crossed in so many years, so if he was here, at the same time that he was here, however unknowingly, it was not by his choice.

Raymond, like he, was here for the vampires who lived here, albeit with very different motives, but it was Raymond nevertheless who would lead him right to them, for if Raymond was here for the reason he suspected, it would only be a matter of time before he made contact.

Nearly three hours. That was how long "only a matter of time" was, evidently, for that was how long he waited, after the sun had set, for the rest of the vampires to show themselves.

There were eight vampires under the pier, including Raymond, five local and three visitors, of which Raymond was one, more than he was expecting, but eight vampires or eighty, it didn't change his plans.

He made sure to stay downwind of them, even if it was unlikely that they would be able to pick his scent out from the others still lingering on the beach and the foreign vampires. Being this close to the pungent water increased his chances of going undetected, but he wasn't taking any. It was hard enough to get the element of surprise when it came to vampires, and he could never let himself forget just how much faster they were than him. He couldn't hear what they were saying, not this far away, but they could, if he wasn't careful. The sand muffled the sound of him opening his duffel bag, and he assembled and loaded the crossbow slowly, waiting for the roller coaster to come back around and hide the noise. He took a slow, quiet breath and carefully raised the crossbow.

Still, as cautious as he was some things couldn't be expected. He missed. With vampires, it was never a good idea to miss, there was no guarantee you'd have enough time to get a second shot off, but Dutton was no stranger to vampires, he was well acquainted with their physical capabilities, as well as the limitations of an otherwise human brain.

While they tried to figure out where the first shot came from, he carefully reloaded the crossbow and fired again. Immediately after loosing the second bolt, he started to break the crossbow down again and repack it into his duffel bag.

It wasn't important that he killed all of them, or as many as he was able to, now, killing the biggest one would suffice for tonight, and Raymond would give the seven remaining vampires his message, before he most likely fled, but he wasn't concerned with Raymond tonight either. He hadn't thought about the boy that Raymond used to be in decades. He had failed the boy he used to be, a long time ago, and he would make it right some night, but it wouldn't be this one. Tonight, Raymond would pass on his message, and tomorrow night, he would begin hunting the rest of them.

Thank you for reading.