The door closed, and Alan and Zoe were gone. Edgar found himself staring at it. Anger flashed inside him, undirected, but still white hot, its focus split between the situation, and his brother's apparent stubborn determination not to back down. He wasn't used to people questioning his orders. When they had been kids, Alan had done what Edgar said unquestioningly. Now, everything was different.
He hated that. He hated it almost as much as he hated the vampires.
He balled his hand into a tight fist and thrust it forward toward the door, but forced himself to stop at the last minute. It would heal, but maybe not all the way in the short amount of time they had, and the last thing he needed was to be going into battle weakened by the sun and with an injured hand.
"Who's Sam?" Daniel asked.
Edgar turned to look at him. He shook his head. "A friend," he said. "I don't want to talk about it."
Daniel held up his hands in mock surrender and nodded. "Message received," he said. "Whoever he is, I could tell it's not a name Alan used lightly. That was a last resort move, Edgar. You really scared him just now."
He knew that. He had scared himself. The worst part was, he knew that Alan was right. For all that he wanted to be able to launch an attack when he felt strong, everything his brother had said made complete sense. It would be madness to give the vampires the upper hand like that.
He just had to keep fighting him on it, because he hated to be wrong.
"Well, anyway," Daniel added. Edgar turned to look at him; he had taken off the sunglasses and placed them on the table next to him. His eyes were already half closed in response to the sun rising outside. "All I'm saying is, for a guy who's supposedly desperate to be human, you don't seem too excited about it happening. You're not having second thoughts, are you?"
Edgar frowned at the other half vampire. A wave of exhaustion washed over him as he felt the sun edge higher in the sky outside.
"Definitely not," he said. "I'm just not sure about…"
"Giving up your cool powers just when you're learning how to use them? Yeah, that's understandable." He paused, and his eyes closed fully. "In fact, I understand it more than you know. What's that going to be like?"
"Shut up," Edgar told him. He sank down onto Alan's couch and allowed his eyes to slide closed. "Just shut the hell up."
He needn't have bothered speaking. The coming sunrise had already rendered Daniel unconscious. Edgar sighed, and allowed his own eyes to close too.
The streets of San Cazador were completely deserted. It was early morning in late summer, the sun rose long before the residents, people on the street were mainly late-night clubbers making their way home, the makeup melting on their faces and the outfits, that probably looked perfect a few hours earlier, crumpled and creased. Among them, Alan caught the occasional early riser, clad in business attire and making their way to the office.
Something about the contrast of those two groups sharing the street struck Alan as funny, and he couldn't help but smile.
The driver's side door opened, and Zoe slipped inside. She held a paper bag in her hand and placed it on her knee as she pulled the door closed. She picked up the bag and showed Alan the contents. Two large, sticky-looking pastries. She shrugged. "Didn't feel right just getting one for myself," she told him. "You want one?"
He hesitated. His experience eating food as a half vampire before had been fairly unsuccessful. Vampires could eat. He knew that. He and Edgar had quizzed Michael Emerson extensively about everything he had experienced with the Santa Carla coven; they didn't need to, but they could.
Unfortunately, the thought turned his stomach. He shook his head.
Zoe shrugged. "No? Ok, well I'll save the other one for lunch then."
Alan had a feeling that had been the plan all along. He nodded, then leaned back in his seat as Zoe restarted the engine and began to head to their destination.
The sun was just beginning to rise, and the sky was red and gold on the horizon, fading to a deep blue in the sky above them, growing progressively darker as the sky faded into the opposite horizon. In his human days, the first time around at least, this had been Alan's favorite time of day; when the sun began to rise and chase away the monsters, but the boardwalk had not yet filled up with the tourists and surfers that seemed to think they owned the place. He had felt comfortable and at home there then, in a way that he never had at any other time.
Things had been different when he had been given his second chance at humanity. After so many years of being denied the sun, he had embraced it at any time of the day. He had found for the first time in his life that he had wanted to be where people were; he had wanted to be a part of the swarm of humanity that covered the beaches and walked through the sunny streets.
But now, of course, daylight was once again the enemy.
Alan reclined in the passenger seat of Zoe's car. They had swapped the truck for the smaller and far less conspicuous vehicle for the purpose of the mission. Alan fought to keep his eyes open as the pressure to give in to his nature grew progressively stronger.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zoe turn her attention away from the road for a moment to glance at him. "Thanks," she said. "For backing me up about being a part of this, I mean."
Alan shrugged. "You were right. He was wrong." He looked around, then blinked in confusion. Just a moment earlier they had still been in the middle of town. Now, suddenly, they were in the heart of suburbia, and the sun had progressed slightly on it's journey across the sky. "Are we there already?" he asked.
Zoe nodded, putting on her blinker and turning in to park at the curb. She pointed at a street just opposite, "That's the place," she said.
Alan followed her gaze, peering through his sunglasses to view their target. Even at this early hour, the glare of the light hurt his eyes. He raised a hand to shield himself from it and squinted. From where she had stopped they had a good view of the whole street without being too obvious. He nodded.
"You were out for about twenty minutes, if you were wondering" Zoe told him. "I figured it'd be better to just let you sleep so you're rested for the day."
Alan nodded. The truth was, it wouldn't make any difference. Vampire physiology, even half vampire, wasn't the same as that of humans. While humans needed sleep to rest and recover, for a vampire sleep was simply a state of being where they stopped, waiting for the night when they could feed once again.
Although he didn't need to rest, he could definitely feel the need to fall into that unconsciousness weighing heavily on him. Trying to ignore it, he reached into his pack and retrieved the binoculars. He raised them to his eyes and looked through, trying to get a clearer view of their target.
The house that Daniel had identified as the home of the head vampire was at the end of the cul-de-sac, a short distance away. He eyed it suspiciously. It looked like any other house in any other suburban neighborhood, they all did. There was nothing there visible to suggest that there was anything wrong with the place.
Something was wrong though, he could feel it now. There were vampires here, he was sure of it. He could sense them now, in a way that would have been impossible the last time he had been here, a familiar tingling sensation just under the skin as the vampire in him reacted to the presence of others of its kind. But that was all that he could get; a sensation that would be barely noticeable if he didn't remember it from before. All the skills he had developed as a half vampire the last time around had been erased, and he was starting again from the very beginning.
In a way - in most ways, actually, he was glad of that. In another though… well, it would have been useful to be able to glean more information than he could see with his eyes. Especially as the higher the sun climbed in the sky, the harder it was for him to see in the glare.
Briefly, he toyed with the idea of going back for Daniel. The other half vampire, far more experienced even than Alan had been before he had become human again, might be able to tell a little more about who was where, how many vampires slept in each house during the day, for example. Alan dismissed the idea. It was too risky, they could miss vital intel while they were away, and the chances were that the other half vampire wouldn't be able to get much in daylight and from this distance either.
He sighed and lowered the binoculars. The car radio was playing some old rock song that Alan half-recognised. It evoked memories of the Santa Carla boardwalk on one of those summer nights so hot and still that the outside held no respite from the heat that had settled around them during the day. As the music faded in and out on the faulty radio, he felt himself transported back there, to his parent's comic book store, the smell of death and saltwater, the three of them; him, his brother, and Sam.
He missed those days. Their absence was like a dull ache somewhere deep inside of him; a void that would never heal. There were times when he thought he would give anything for the chance to go back.
No. He needed to stop reminiscing. He sat up as straight as the seat would allow, trying not to get too comfortable as he fought against the weariness that grew ever stronger the higher the sun rose in the sky. It had not been so long since he had last greeted the coming daylight with this much trepidation, but it already felt alien to him. He had grown used to humanity again quickly, and to be suddenly plunged back into vampirism again was… difficult.
"Hey," Zoe said. She nudged him gently with her elbow and he opened his eyes, only realizing as he did that they had been closed. "You okay?"
He stifled a yawn. "Yeah, just getting tired." He pointed at the sky, as though she might not have noticed that the sun was up.
Zoe winced sympathetically. "Must be rough."
She had no idea. Even Edgar, doing this for the first time, had no idea what it was like to be freed from the vampire infection only to find himself back in the exact same position a few months later.
But he had no desire to talk about that. Instead, he shrugged dismissively. "I'm fine. I came to terms with it a long time ago. Being back here again is less than ideal, but at least I already know how to do it."
"Right." Zoe nodded, looking unconvinced. "You know, you and Edgar are a lot alike."
Alan shrugged. "So I've heard," he said. Less so recently, but as kids, people had tended to speak their names in one breath, Edgarandalan, as though even the idea of separating the two of them was unthinkable. And for a time, it had been.
"Yeah, I can always tell when he's putting on a brave face too," Zoe told him.
Fair enough. But compared to their other problems, his half vampire issue really did seem minor. "Really, I'm fine. It's Edgar I'm worried about," he told her. "Some of the things he's been saying…" he tailed off, not sure whether he should voice his concerns. Of course, Zoe had been there. She had heard exactly what Edgar had been saying.
"You both also like to change the subject when things get awkward," Zoe told him. "I'll give you this much though, you're a better actor than Edgar. Slightly. You're not fine though, are you?"
Alan shrugged wordlessly. If she was going to come right out and accuse him like that, he really didn't have any defense. "Not yet," he admitted. "But I will be."
The song on the radio finished, and faded out to be replaced by a commercial. The two of them sat in silence for a moment and listened to a jingle about carpets.
"Are you ever going to tell Edgar?" Alan asked after a moment. "About you, I mean. About what you are?"
Zoe glanced at him sideways. "There you go again, changing the subject."
He didn't reply. She was right of course, that was exactly what he was doing, but it was something that he really did need to know. It had been one thing keeping her secret when it was just the three of them and there was no reason to think it might come up, but now Daniel had been added to the mix; a far less predictable element. Not to mention, it would have made things a lot easier last night if Edgar had been clued in.
She licked her lips and ran her fingers nervously through her hair, then shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know," she told him. "I want to; I don't like secrets. But then, I have no idea what he's going to do if I tell him."
"Meaning what? You think he might start shopping for silver bullets?"
"He already has them." Zoe said, then shuddered. "Also, can you not?"
He nodded. That was a fair request.
It occurred to him that he didn't actually know anything about Zoe; whether she had been born a werewolf, or whether she had been bitten; whether she was breaking some rule that he didn't know about by her friendship with Edgar. Did she have a pack, or was she a lone wolf? Were either of those things even real when it came to werewolves? He just didn't know enough about them. He had devoted his life to the study of vampires. He knew that there were other creatures out there, but they had never bothered him and so, until now, he had rarely paid them any mind.
"Sorry," he told her.
Zoe smiled, wrinkling her nose as she did. "It's fine," she told him. "I'm just not a big fan of discussing ways of killing me. Would you like it if I started talking about wooden stakes?" She shrugged. "Well, actually, no, that's not the best comparison."
"No," Alan agreed. "But I take your point."
They sank into silence for a moment. Alan raised the binoculars again to check the street for activity, but nothing was happening. A quick glance at his watch confirmed that it was still early, they might be waiting a while.
He lowered the binoculars and glanced at Zoe again. "Edgar wouldn't hurt you," he assured her. "I don't think he ever would have, but especially not now, after everything that's happened. Trust me on this, becoming a half vampire can change your perspective on things a little."
She made a small noise that could have been either agreement or not, he wasn't sure.
"It would really make things easier if he knew," Alan added. "As it is, we're having to tiptoe around it. Like last night; the vampires couldn't turn you even if they wanted to, and it would be easier if Edgar knew that."
"No offense, Alan, but if I'm going to share this huge and very possibly friendship-destroying secret with Edgar, it isn't going to be so that things are less awkward for you."
Alan nodded. "No, of course not."
"And it isn't like I'm not in danger. Just because they can't turn me doesn't mean they can't kill me, does it?"
"Okay, good point…" he stopped. His eyes beneath his sunglasses flicked over to look at the road they were there to observe. A man had exited one of the houses. "Activity," he said, nodding in the direction of the street and sinking lower in his seat, trying to look less conspicuous.
Zoe followed his lead, taking Edgar's advice and sinking so far into the seat that she would be almost invisible through the windows of the truck. "That's the head vampire's house," she said.
Alan nodded. He checked his watch, then reached for his pen and notepad and jotted down the time. He squinted through the early morning sunshine as he lifted the binoculars again to watch what was happening. Even as he fought against it, exhaustion was attempting to drag him down into sleep. He forced his eyes open and watched as the man walked down the path set between the neatly manicured lawn at one side and the large SUV parked on the drive at the other. The man reached into his pocket as he did, retrieved a car key, pressed the button and climbed into a new Ford parked on the curbside. He started the engine, and drove away, turning at the end of the cul-de-sac without even glancing at Zoe's car as he passed.
Zoe exhaled a relieved sigh as the car disappeared into the distance. "He didn't see us, did he?"
Alan hesitated. He didn't think so, but his view had been severely limited by the daylight. "No, probably not," he said.
"Talk about a work ethic," Zoe added, whispering now despite the fact that there was nobody there to hear her. "Can't let the vampire in the basement get in the way of your 9 to 5."
Alan passed her the notepad, the pen, and the binoculars for next time. "What did he look like? Age; health; anything that might be useful. Note any details down. I can't see anything in this glare."
Zoe turned to glance out of the back window. The sun hovered just above the horizon and very much not in the eyes of anybody currently sitting with it directly behind them. Her lips parted briefly as though she was going to say something.
"It's my kryptonite," Alan told her.
Zoe smiled and shook her head, then took the pen and pad, and began to scribble down what she could see. Alan felt his eyes slide closed again. He forced them open, and reached for the lever to position his seat even more bolt-upright than in already was.
"If you want to sleep, go ahead. I'll wake you if anything happens."
Alan shook his head. "No, I'm okay. You're probably tired too, you were up all night. We'll keep each other awake."
Zoe shrugged. "We can try, I guess." She glanced around the car, then raised the binoculars to her eyes and played with the focus for a moment. That done, she lowered them and sighed. "Do you know any good car games?" she asked. "I'd suggest eye spy, but I think I'd have an unfair advantage."